iloveDigit comments on The way of the pirate

[–] iloveDigit@piefed.social 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (12 children)

Idk what to tell you man, if you're not growing food or cooking food or doing anything for the people that grow and cook food except be competition for the other art they could enjoy or make, then people probably shouldn't be giving you money until they can figure out how to organize a society that produces enough food for everyone

Also, you only feel pressured to get incomprehensibly infinite practice because you made it about money. I haven't practiced piano in forever or directly used my piano skill for any of the music I've made, and I've never heard any music better than what friends have played for me after mere portions of mere human lifetimes of practice on their instruments, back when I had friends.

If you have friends, no level of virtuosity you reach or money you make should ever be as meaningful as time you've spent jamming or even just listening to music with them

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[+] oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago (11 children)

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[–] iloveDigit@piefed.social 2 points 10 months ago (10 children)

If you've grown food, I have no criticism. Will read the rest of this a little later, just wanted to reply to that part first

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[+] oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago* (9 children)

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[–] iloveDigit@piefed.social 2 points 10 months ago* (8 children)

It sounds like you're the kind of person who generally does useful stuff all the time, aside from music, while perhaps not getting paid enough for everything.

And it sounds like you want to economically rely on music as your marketable skill, and it's core to who you are. People will pay for music, even if they're irrational for it, it still seems rational for you to want to be one of the musicians they pay. Because you want to focus on music, if I'm understanding correctly?

So you can survive by marketing your other skills, but you try to make money on music and you want the arts to be well funded.

But funding the arts wouldn't work as a generalist idea because not all artists are the same kind of person as you. Not all actually do useful stuff when they can. Taylor Swift just flies around polluting shit for example.

I see it as a problem that our culture had the idea of music as an economically marketable skill before the idea of ending world hunger. I don't think our culture should make you feel like relying on that is a viable option. Taylor Swift shouldn't be so rich. Wealth should be so evenly distributed that your drive to make the world a better place makes it easier for you to earn enough from side jobs and focus on music.

But since that's not the world we have, it's understandable that you think the way you do. I don't judge it.

It sounds like our core disagreement might even boil down to one term - "on the side." It sounds like you envision doing music with other work on the side, and I envision doing other work with music on the side. It sounds like, if you get rich on music, you'd probably buy a home and start a community garden or do something for the hungry in your community. Then I'd say you're earning your position with that stuff and the music is on the side, but you and society would say you're earning your keep with music and that other stuff is on the side, I guess. You don't envision flying around pointlessly like Taylor Swift, your vision is more like mine, just with different words, maybe.

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[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 1 point 10 months ago (7 children)

You keep using the word "useful" in a way that suggests you've narrowly defined it in your head to exclude art. Life without art quickly results in a whole lot of death. Even the poorest humans throughout history have created music and art, because it's a fundamental part of human life. Just because art is less critical to immediate survival in most cases than eating doesn't make it any less necessary than it; shelter being more or less critical than food in a given situation (deadly sub-zero blizzard, more critical. Temperate area with no dangerous weather or predators, less critical) also doesn't make it more or less necessary, it's just a varying order of necessity. Being anti-Capitalist is important, but I feel like you've written off "professional" art as the domain of Capitalism rather than another victim of it (which food is as well, for that matter).

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[–] iloveDigit@piefed.social 1 point 10 months ago* (6 children)

No, art is definitely less necessary than eating. Art doesn't help much if you're starving to death.

And yeah, poor people can make art. In fact, I don't think you can be too poor to do art. You can be too poor to eat.

As long as there are people starving, there's not enough money for food and therefore far from enough money for art (which is supposed to be free anyway, as is food indeed).

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[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 1 point 10 months ago* (5 children)

Art doesn’t help much if you’re starving to death.

And being well-fed doesn't help much if you're contemplating suicide because your life has no joy in it. And art is not the only source of joy, but it is one of them (and one of the most common).

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