About The Finished Product
Post 1086:
Working on something that takes a long time can be frustrating when you can’t show anybody the deal until it’s done. That’s the crap thing about paintings or novels or movies. The people you want enjoying the freaking thing can’t see it until the bit is wrapped and all the pieces are nice and snug. The finished product. That’s what I’ve heard they call it.
I bet when Michelangelo was doing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for four years, every night he’d come home to people asking him how he was spending his time. He had a chunky cousin named Pietro living in his house in the extra bedroom who would beg him to come work at his butcher shop down by the town square. It was a prime location, after all, and they got to take home good money every night. And of course there was Uncle Lorenzo, old and withering, advising his once-in-a-generation genius nephew not to waste life on silly things. “Look at me,” Lorenzo would say, “someday you’ll be dead. Do something useful for the love of God and for the love of the Blessed Virgin and for the love of all the Saints and Martyrs, you silly upside down painting half-wit. Anyways, I thought you were a sculptor.”
Okay, so none of that happened. But it is slightly based on true events. Can you imagine this great man doing this great work and not being able to show anyone? Sure, there’s always the anticipation of unveiling it—that’s a good motivator—but the project took years. People died from infected papercuts back then. Parchment cuts. Scroll rash. Whatever. Fragile times is what I’m saying. He might be not even be around to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
In a way, I can imagine Michelangelo’s plight. Not the being a genius part, but the waiting and working, almost as the world goes by. Art that doesn’t suck requires massive amounts of commitment and labor. At times it’s all-consuming.
You’ve got to find a way to be okay with the fact that every once in a while someone’s going to say to you, “What’s your day look like? Man, I wish I had all that free time. Must be sweet.”
Yeah. It’s sweet. Frigging delizioso. La dolce vita. (Sorry, my Italian isn’t up to speed. But it goes with the whole Michelangelo deal)
And I get it. When I ask my friends that build real estate what’s up, they point to a building and tell me, “That. And another one is going up over there.” When I ask a doctor how he’s been using his time, he says, “See that person. They’d be dead as hell without me.”
They’ve got real-time results, these people. I’m not going to lie. I would love to have real-time results. But I have to make my peace with the path I’ve chosen. By “make peace,” I mean keep typing and pump out some good characters and story arcs, holding back the desire to throw the computer across the room, freeing myself from artistic chains so I can finally take that job with Pietro at the butcher shop.
All right. That’s probably enough. Just finish your thing. You know what you’re doing and why you do it, even when you don’t. Haha. Try explaining that one to the family.
Cheers and see you after.
