Sometimes I feel like people become less and less interested in me as time goes by. As an artist, as a self employed person who relies on generating interest in order to generate an income, this would probably leas to an existential crisis if I let it, but I am stronger than that now, and I see that things are more complex than that.
It’s easy for the mind to play tricks on you.
I remember back to about 15 years ago. I always had someone to talk to, not just soemone, but a wide variety of somebodies. Good friends and new friends and people who were interesred in getting to know me.
It always felt like I was getting to know new people on an almost daily basis. I had long conversations with all kinds of people, in person and online. I showed up in a new town and could find people who were curious about me and my life.
So when I compare that to now, I feel like hadly anyone cares at all about what I am doing and this causes all kinds of doubts, not because I need attention for attentions sale but because I am essentially self employed now so attention affects my ability to live in the world.
But when I step back and look at what’s changed, it’s hardly the negative picture my mind wants to paint it as.
The time period I am comparing with was the most active time in my life.
For half of it I was playingg 2-3 shows a month, spent most of my free time socializing and messaging people I was interested in. The other half of the time I was backpacking around and going on adventures.
Most of the people I met didn’t have the same kind of rich artistic and social life the people I know now do and so they were more eager to connect.
I was single and so I was kind of on the hunt. This meant that there was an extra door open for certain people that they certainly don’t percieve as open now, although I don’t feel much has changed on my end because all my relationships started with friendship and I do not have a problem with making friends with anyone now, even someone I find attractive. Friendship is friendship and attraction is attraction, as far as I am concerned these are two completely seperate metrics and my partner and i even talk about who we find attractive.
But having a partner definetly changes how other people interaxt with you, especially if you become less social, and I definietly have.
I think having fewer adventures hurts a lot more than fewer messages in my DM box, and probably has a direct effect on any decrease in interest in what I an doing, but attention feels easier than adventure and so the mind seems to think attention will help me make a living and spread my art, even if adventure was what led to any attention I had before.
If i compare to before those adventures, there was less interest if anything. I tend to forget how uneventful my life was when I first started working from today’s standard. I had a lower standard and I was also living overseas so everything felt fresh and new. I was working for someone else and so how much attention I got didn’t matter to me as much.
The more I think about this, the more I realize that any insecurity I have about a lack of attention is really just a diversion away from the real issue which is that I need more adventure in my life. I am an explorer by nature and getting too settled in my Tokyo life has made things stagenate.
This was a nessesary part of a process though so I don’t need to feel bad about it. I was working on myself and on my projects. I was growing and building. It was a kind of winter stage of my life and after winter comes Spring.
This year I’ve already resolved to take at least two more trips, probably 3 or 4, after my first multi-day trip in years a few months ago.
The ice is beginning to thaw. The cocoon is beginning to break. There is no need to feel a sense of lack. Things are coming together.