- Global catastrophes change the world, and this pandemic is very much akin to a major war. Even if we contain the Covid-19 crisis within a few months, the legacy of this pandemic will live with us for years, perhaps decades to come. It will change the way we move, build, learn, and connect. There is simply no way that our lives will resume as if this had never happened. And so, while it may feel good in the moment, it is foolish to dive into a frenzy of activity or obsess about your scholarly productivity right now. That is denial and delusion. The emotionally and spiritually sane response is to prepare to be forever changed.
The rest of this piece is an offering. I have been asked by my colleagues around the world to share my experiences of adapting to conditions of crisis. Of course, I am just a human, struggling like everyone else to adjust to the pandemic. However, I have worked and lived under conditions of war, violent conflict, poverty, and disaster in many places around the world. I have experienced food shortages and disease outbreaks, as well as long periods of social isolation, restricted movement, and confinement. I have conducted award-winning research under intensely difficult physical and psychological conditions, and I celebrate productivity and performance in my own scholarly career.
I share the following thoughts during this difficult time in the hope that they will help other academics to adapt to hardship conditions. Take what you need, and leave the rest.
I think that some people have a mistaken belief that the only thing standing in the way of them being productive is the amount of free time they have. Then suddenly they have all the time they could ever want and they realise it's not that simple. Yeah, it's easy to be productive at work when you have a load of external motivations imposed on you. But working hard on personal projects during your free time requires intrinsic motivation. You have to build up a different sense of discipline and new working habits. Often it's not going to be fun, even if its something you love. And all the time your brain is trying to convince you just to chill with a video game or TV show. It's hard. oyster also makes a good point about productivity being different for each person. If you don't define those expectations for yourself, you're going to be lost from the start. To top it all off, we're all feeling extra anxiety and stress from the current situation. That's been enough to stymie people who have already built up that discipline. So having a load of free time due to being quarantined is not some golden ticket to productivity.
I think there's a lack of context at play as well. WHY. WHY does the world need your album. What is your album's place in the world when you don't know what the future looks like. Social media is performative. Never has that been more clear than in the Facebook group for my kid's school. The same parents whose kids interrupt every.single.thing are the ones posting pictures of their kids' learning stations, their projects, their cute little sketches... it's like "bitch if you just hung out with your kid for fifteen minutes my kid could actually get through Spanish but instead you're on Facebook posting pictures of her interrupting the class to show how on top of it you are." They aren't on top of it, and they know it. What they want is a dozen likes and comments telling them they're on top of it because clap your hands if you believe in fairies.
I have eleven linear inches of screenplays that were represented by William Morris. I have album credits older than you. Don't fucking lecture me. You're exemplifying exactly why artists are so fucking tedious. You've injected a value judgement into someone's spare time. I've been there: when I was stressed out what I wanted to do more than any goddamn thing in the world was kick back and play The Sims or some shit but no, I wrote screenplays. Because Art. Yeah I heard you even though you didn't say it - "screenplays aren't art." Because "art" is this thing that you do, and people you respect do, and everyone else is wasting their time. "I make music because I fucking need to." Get over yourself. You make music because you think it sets you apart from all the people around you, who you hate, so you're grabbing at the one thing that in your judgment separates you from them and if you don't think everyone else doesn't see it you're fucking delusional. Look. Make art. Make art because it's therapeutic, make art because it inspires you, make art because it defines who you are but stop shitting on people who aren't making art because what it does? Is it makes the people around you hate your fucking art. Right now? Right now you're telling yourself I'm not really an artist. Because I don't "fucking need to." Listen up: Every external observer is aware that the doubt you feel about your abilities and the uncertainty you feel about your path is expressed as vitriolic backlash against everyone who makes a different choice than you. And it is winning you no friends. And until you've seen a line 400-long full of assholes just like you with even less likelihood of going anywhere with it you will hold tight to your bosom the idea that somehow you're special so you get to be an asshole about it. Ableton is just another video game, son, and a guitar is functionally a skateboard. And your brother fucking needs to play League of Legends. Get the fuck over yourself.Hey man, I don't make music because I want to. I make music because I fucking need to.
It's a bit of a jump to take what I said and end up at 'doing what you love is mostly shit'. Though 'often' was an overstatement on my part. The overarching point I was trying to make is that just because something is your passion, it doesn't mean that it's not going to be hard work. Sure, sometimes the hard work seems like nothing and 11-hour sessions fly by. But other times everything seems unnecessarily hard and it's a bit of a slog. People can underestimate that. Also, good times can be quickly followed by bad ones. Every creator I know has stories of spending many enjoyable hours on a project one day, only to review their work the next and realise it's shite. That's not a fun experience. The process is ultimately fun and gratifying, but it's not always so in the present moment. That's the case for me and others I know. If it's not for you then more power to you.
I'd argue that the ONLY people who are 'artists' are the ones who do the slog. ANYONE can do an 11-hour session and get in flow and have that moment of epicness. In fact, MOST people have this, at some point, when doing something. But, that's the easy part. The hard part is taking that garbage output from the 11-hour marathon, and turning it into something useful/valuable that anyone-but-you would want to consume. As a writer, this process is particularly vivid. I've written 15k words in a day. It was mind-blowing. But none of that was comprehensible to someone outside of my head. That's where editing comes in. Of those 15k words, probably only 3k survived after editing, and the rest became a rough 30-point outline. All those other words were deleted. Same with music. Great! You spent 11 hours bashing out something. But if you don't spend another 4-5 hours on mastering, it will be unlistenable to anyone but yourself; a curio they might listen to 30 seconds of before turning it off and saying, "Yeah. I can hear something in that. I'd love to hear it when it is done!" That second step? The editing? The mastering? That's the defining line between an artist and everyone else. That's what stops most people: the work. The third step is then being creative for an 11-hour session when you don't want to. When you get up in the morning - every single morning - and write for 4 hours, even when there is nothing in your brain. When your fingers hurt. When you are tired. When your tools are failing you, and you need to switch to a typewriter, or ukulele, to write, instead of your usual computer. Those are the artists I respect the most. The ones who do the work. "...Sure, sometimes the hard work seems like nothing and 11-hour sessions fly by. But other times everything seems unnecessarily hard and it's a bit of a slog. People can underestimate that...."
I agree, 100%. I cannot be idle. I also have 11 FTE to consider right now. I am working for them. I have investors that I owe my productivity to. Trust me, there's a big part of me that would like to say, "fuck it, I can't beat this I might as well wear my PJ's all day and record music." But I won't. I can't. Every day I shave. Every day I put on the same clothes I would wear in to work. Every day I make my calls, write my emails, connect with investors and clients. Every day I show up. Fuck COVID-19. I'm determined that my family and my company will be stronger on the other side of all of this. I think the external pressure is to quit. The internal pressure is to be productive. I agree. Onward!!!!!!!
I am experiencing the opposite. I'm doing what I can to be productive but the world is suddenly full of things beyond my control. So I control the things I can, improve the things I can, and spend my evenings drinking Bushmill's and playing Horizon Zero Dawn. I was radically more productive when my day was not subject to constant interruption by Charlie the Shouter and the utter derailment of my daughters now-from-the-couch education. Not only that, the only control I have is to write scathing emails to the people who saddled us with this bullshit software. So I don't worry so much about wasting my free time because fuckin' hell I need SOMETHING that awards me points, goddamn it.
I think the problem is other people are trying to define what being productive looks like for every person. I’ve got a stack of books to read so I’m more than happy taking it slow and just reading for now. My boyfriend is a pretty high energy, sociable person so he’s been pacing around waiting for the snow to melt so he can start yard work which mostly sounds like lighting everything on fire at this point. For him, all the advice going around is good advice but I think other people end of feeling bad they aren’t being “productive” enough.
Ah no, there’s this whole thing ,mostly on Instagram I guess, about being productive. Doing shit like taking up a new hobby that you probably don’t have the equipment for and shouldn’t go to the store to get. It started when school got cancelled for a few weeks almost immediately. All of a sudden everybody was a homeschooler and it was like, isn’t it March Break anyways ? Even my college took a break, I’m already a full time online student but we got set back a week to stay on pace with the rest of the school while they set everybody else up online. Mostly it seemed like people trying to avoid accepting what was happening. For the one day I believed I would only be laid off for 2 months I had tons of plans, but that ended pretty quick. Now I’m back to my normal amount of planning, and routine. Some people though benefit from the productivity push. I think the problem arises when it’s seen as the one solution for everybody, that’s when people start ruining March Break, thinking a trip to a mountains town that would be devastated by an outbreak is a good idea and running to the store for craft supplies.