Trail

Growing up as a millennial, I think one of the things that I was assured of was a straight path to success. Go to school, get good grades, coast for life. Who wouldn’t be seduced by the idea of having a stable, consistent job for 40 to 50 years and then you retire? I’ll admit that I still catch myself day-dreaming about a life like that from time to time.

I won’t be discussing the legitimacy of that kind of life plan in this piece of writing and I’m just including it here just to say that it’s not something completely foreign to me and if I lived a different life, that would have been a preferred path to go down.

Given a choice, I’d have chosen to work in a traditional editorial or teaching job. But given the state of the world and the continuously changing nature of it, I’d be hard-pressed to lock down something that I would do. But gun to my head, those would be my first two choices.

I think that a lot of people are still like me, at least those who I’ve talked to personally. It seems that the allure of a steady, predictable income is still something that most look for. But I’m not the only one who noticed this, gurus have as well. What I’m implying by gurus are those who sell courses to their audiences. These gurus always strike me as weird. In the sense that if you’re good at what you’re doing, why aren’t you earning money by monopolizing the market. Instead you’re saturating the market further by introducing more and more competitors. Unless what you’re teaching isn’t effective or you know that your own earning power is limited. You stand to earn more by “teaching” others, all the while doing less and less.

My main beef with these gurus is that they trap their students into a mindset that is limited by their inadequacies. Instead of a mindset of appreciation for the craft and the hard work it takes to master it. They’ve distilled it down to digestible chunks to sell to their students and further segregated this knowledge behind even more paywalls.

I think growing up with the mindset that there are certain paths set before us, predisposes us to the idea that there are these knowledgeable teachers out there who are willing to give us a slice of their pie. Maybe I’m a little cynical, but given the nature of most human beings out there. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

All this is to say why are we giving away our hard earned money to gurus when we live in an age where information is freely available. Perhaps it’s the hope that we can take a shortcut from where we are to where we want to be? Or maybe we’re hoping to take a look into a crystal ball and find comfort as we see ourselves in the guru and our potential future giving us a sense of comfort.

While not all courses are scams, just be wary when your money is going to pay that person’s bills instead of the organizers. Basically, the teacher doesn’t actually need your money to live. They have a sufficiently well paying job elsewhere and the course is just a courtesy. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it’s one I live by.

I think I got sidetracked. Got a little heated by those who sell courses online. Back to the point of this piece of writing.

There’s no easy way to get to where you want to go, especially in a creative field. You could ride the coattails of another creator. Pay someone to write or draw for you. But if you want to be an artist, you’re gonna have to do the hard work. There are no shortcuts. Relying on AI or someone else to tell you their path to success isn’t going to work and it’s going to lead you to doubt yourself even further. I know being told to work on your art isn’t as sexy as being told “here are 5 tips to be a great artist”. But I don’t want to sugarcoating the struggles that you will face and I know a lot of people who keep going to trainings and seminars on how to create art, when the solution is starting them at the face all the time.

Do the work, get better, keep creating.