i’ve always wanted to be an artist. i’ve brushed upon the world of artistry in the past; i was a heavy participant in my high school’s choir program. i was, for a very brief stint, a music major in college, but it wasn’t the right fit. why wasn’t it the right fit? well, an orchestra of circumstances; for one, i entered school with the singular goal of leaving as a music educator. as soon as i entered the throes of that life, though, i came to the quick conclusion that that life and i had nothing in common. i had no interest in teaching, and especially not at the high school level or lower. music programs, at that level, are a dangerous game; you will either have a group of the most talented kids you will ever meet, or a collective of disinterested elective-fillers.
my leaving that program was also in no small part thanks to the pandemic. my mental health had been completely obliterated as a result of it; my family was (and still is) high-risk, and to be frank: i was scared. i didn’t want to die. i believe my anxiety had already lightly pushed me towards being a hypochondriac, but the perception of an invisible threat that could kill me at any time was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. i stayed home that semester. i asked for a type of exception from the college that let me take my classes from home. i didn’t want to attend a mass-spreader event waiting to happen. why would i?
of course, that was a farce. covid spread a lot on that campus, yes, but in hindsight, i realize that the chances of me dying if i contracted the disease were laughably slim. precautions had been taken on campus. if i had worn a mask (which, trust me, i was doing literally any time i was left the house) and stayed cognizant, i might not have even caught it. to be clear, this is not me trying to say that covid ‘wasn’t a threat’ or any of that hogwash. it’s just that there’s a line to be crossed, one that seemed so thin at the time, to pass between ‘safety within reason’ and ‘attempting to avoid catching any disease ever’. this was still just before the vaccine, and although i probably wouldn’t have had a great time, i think the sheer fact of my young age would have aided me tremendously. if i had gone to campus, i wouldn’t have had to worry about my parents catching it from me while i was sick, either. i contracted it at work a year later. i was out for a few weeks, and went back in as if it had never happened.
nowadays, the hypochondria that i suffered from is in a much more manageable state. as i just mentioned, i eventually started working a public-facing job, which helped tremendously. i still have occasional health-anxiety flare-ups (in reality, it’s probably more so generalized anxiety than health anxiety specifically), but they’re in a much more manageable state. still, the effects of those few years linger upon my life like a recently-sprayed air freshener.
i’m not sure that i would call singing ‘making art’, though. singing someone else’s music, in my opinion, is not necessarily an act of creation that is required by the phrase.. there is some creativity involved, sure - a performer’s interpretation of a piece is in a way its own creation, which is why i use the term “brushed upon”. ever since “dropping out” of music school (i don’t know how else to put this; ‘changing majors’ doesn’t feel like it touches upon the severity of the choice i made at the time), i’ve glanced into the world of art longingly, thinking to myself, “i wish i could do that…”, yet i never do.
last night, i watched look back (dir. kiyotaka oshiyama), and a fire has been lit underneath me.
i want to make it clear that i had already read the manga before watching the film. i think i might have even read it twice. it’s very good. the movie is better.
the film embodies the creative process in a way that i’ve not quite seen before. it adores the act of creation - not just the end result. rocky-style montages are in play here, proving to the viewer that making ‘good’ art is not something that happens overnight. it’s something that we hear regularly, and we know it to be true, but it’s one of those things that you have to see manifest to understand.
this, in turn, aids with the metatext of the film. the manga was made by an artist who has done what fujino does. hours and hours of painstaking labor, practice drawings that will never be seen by anyone except themself, all for the purpose of making manga. furthermore, the film itself is made by hundreds of people who have had this exact same experience. the nature of the film leads the audience to see the mind-bending animation work and imagine the work that created it. the storyboards, the key frames, the in-betweens all circle around my mushbrain for fifty-eight minutes straight.
i don’t have excuses for not making the things i want to make. telling myself that i’m ‘not good enough yet’ won’t work anymore. it can’t. it’s not that i’m ‘not good enough’ at anything, i just don’t want to put the energy in to learning something. i’m lazy. i’ve always been lazy. the only times i’ve ever put effort into anything has been for school - i’ve never put effort into anything for myself.
i saw, in look back, a thousand different versions of myself. some of them are writers. some of them are musicians. some of them started drawing when they were kids and never stopped. but none of them are me.
i want to change that. i have to change that. nobody knows how much time they have left. my time, like kyomoto’s, may be cut painfully short. i think about that a lot. what will i leave behind when i die?, i ask myself. the answer right now is: well, nothing. i haven’t put anything meaningful out in the world. considering it was eighty degrees in november where i live and mount fuji had its first snowless october in recorded history, we as a collective probably don’t have much longer. humanity will exist past my natural lifespan, but for how long? when the climate crisis becomes unavoidable for most of the world, how will it react? art is already seen by the plurality as a mere commodity. people stand in line in a fashion not unlike sardines just to see a live panel from disney in which five new sequels-of-sequels are announced. generative ai is seeping into every facet of the commodified art that is at the front and center of our cultural minds. people should care. they don’t. they won’t. the layman doesn’t care that a few visual effects jobs were trimmed off here, a few writing gigs emaciated there.
i look back (lol) on my few months as a music major a lot. i carelessly concoct a web of what-ifs on the regular: what if i didn’t change my major? what if i had switched from music education to vocal performance? would i have stayed? would i be a professional performer right now? tying myself up in the past like this is an exercise in futility. as cliche as it might be to say, i need to look forward towards what i can do. art does not begin and end at education. this is a good reminder as i look around at my arts-led college and see the thousand selves manifest.
so how do i start? well, with this. this essay (is it an essay? i guess so) might be the only thing i have made for fun as of recent. i told myself i would finish this essay no matter what, and here we are. countless attempts at creation end prematurely with the frustration of not understanding. this, at the very least, is my own attempt to fight against that. i don’t know if what i’ve written here is good, or even passable. i might find this essay again in a few years and absolutely despise it. i might try to take it down. this is, i suppose, a message to my future self: please do not take this down.
this collection of words is the most honest i’ve ever been outside of my own head. these are the kind of thoughts that fester but never materialize. well, i’m trying to materialize them. i figure the most important thing about making art is being honest - both with yourself and with your audience. it’s kind of presumptuous to label this essay as art but i honestly don’t know what else to call it. oh well. if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. i will try to push myself to write more; if i don’t, then i fear i will reach my second death before my first.