Sitting at Point A. (Again.)
As I sit here pondering a new direction in life that is on the horizon, I've been wondering about things to this point. I tend to think of myself as a creative person. I may not be the best at anything that I do, but I like to think I'm a bit better than average. It just makes me wonder. I've tried to do all sorts of creative things over the years. Reflecting back on each one of my endeavors, it's sad to say that almost each one has been full of Epic Fail™. I've tried lots of things over the years. I enjoy doing most of them, but it's frustrating to see all the work I put into things and nothing really coming of it. I've put so many things out into the world and it hard to see that little to no one is paying attention. I think the only thing I've ever done that people have paid any attention to was my work with Richard and Wendy Pini of Elfquest fame. And that's attention by association. Not really anything of my doing. But I look at things like @anime!, my online anime magazine. Or my photography. Or my design "business". If you look at any of those, none of them could be considered anything close to what could be called a success.
So as I sit here staring at this computer screen, I have to wonder. Is it even worth the time to do anything creative on my own anymore? I've got lots of projects that I work on that, frankly, don't ever amount to anything. I'm wondering if it's worth it to keep pouring time and effort into these things. Should I just kill them all and try to move on to something else? It's quite the quandary. And I don't really know what to do. Art. Design. Writing. Photography... it all seems so worthless if there's no one to look at it or use it. It's even harder a thing when you think about the fact that I've been doing all this stuff for more than half my life. It's really all that I know.
I've been trying to figure out how to move forward. School will be starting up again in a few weeks. I swore to myself that I wouldn't go back, but I don't think I really have much choice. I'll be going a direction that I have a feeling won't be an easy one. I'm starting into Business Management with a Marketing focus. I have to be honest, I hate the business side of business. I really prefer to do the creative stuff. But after almost 20 years in the design world, I don't think I can get anywhere in that world anymore. Being a designer just doesn't seem to cut it anymore. I don't want to go into management, but after 20 years as a designer, management is the only place for me to go now it seems. Having a job where I won't be able to design isn't what I think I'll like, but there's little else for me to do without changing fields completely and I don't want to do that either.
And then there's the bad economy.
It's quite the dilemma. And I don't know what to do.
I'm tired and just want to move on, but it seems that I can't. Somewhere, there's an answer. I just hope that I can find it.