A Will Away ask, is it ever enough?
USA-based four-piece A Will Away have just released their new single, Spittin’ Chitlets. They have written an opinion-piece on the incessant need for more. Here it is:
“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Something of a weighted question when you really take the time to think about it. We ask this of small children to help their minds begin to wander on the possibilities. I’d argue that for most of our formative years, we also ask this of ourselves. As we age, we become more aware of the logistics involved in becoming anything at all. We start to adjust our expectations of ourselves to be more in line with our reality. We lean into our strengths and choose career paths that we think might highlight them. We hope that under the best of circumstances, our answers to this question will bring us happiness, stability, and a sense of purpose. I never really had a difficult time answering this question, because my answer never really changed. I wanted to be an artist, and even as a kid I thought that I knew what that meant.
To me, an artist is someone who holds a mirror up to the world from their perspective. An artist is someone who shares ideas and feelings through a variety of different mediums. An artist creates — and in that way acts as a representative of humanity experiencing itself.
From childhood, I’ve viewed the act of creating as something that takes a lot of time, effort, and care. I’ve always thought that asking for an audience placed a certain burden on the artist to create something worthy of consumption. It always seemed like something of a noble pursuit. The artist creates, the audience consumes, and the cycle repeats for as long as a feeling of mutual respect between the two can be sustained. But what happens when the audience’s appetite for consumption outpaces the artists’ ability to create without compromise? What happens when not even too much is ever enough?
As a culture, we’ve evolved into a collective beast of consumption. We’ve replaced the word “art” with the word “content”. We’ve decided to opt for quantity over quality. We’ve made it clear through our habits and our preferences that the work of an artist is now to attempt to satiate our incessant need for more. We tend to binge through their work without internalizing it, and we patently disrespect the role that artists play in our daily lives.
Even as a professional musician, copywriter, and graphic designer — I find myself as guilty of this as anyone else, regardless of how astutely aware I am of the problem. I’ve grown far too apt to cast aside anything that fails to hold my attention for more than a moment. I’ve even become burnt out on my ability to appreciate creative works in a way that respects the intentions of the people behind them.
I often find myself returning to that question — “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”. I’m certain that my answer still hasn’t changed, but I’m no longer so certain about what that means.
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