The sketch was made by me.

“I can’t believe you are wasting your potential on doing an activity that almost everyone can do it. I am your parent and I know what’s best for you.”

 

If you are reading this post, chances are you have already heard this for more than once, especially if you are a teenager, you probably still hear it.

I know for a fact that one who is motivated and driven by his vision cannot be moved by some petty words. But I also know that, if you are young, and you are trying to find a way as an artist, the thing you crave the most is supportivness, or at least, lack of negative responses on your art.

It’s tough to hear your colleagues and mates saying that what you do sucks. But you will get over it, because you know that you mates’ opinion on your work doesn’t matter if they haven’t tried to do artistic work. But when you hear your parent not just telling you that your art sucks, but also insulting art as a whole, you may get a bit upset… ok, a bit more.

The thing is that parents who shouldn’t have been parents yet will classify their children’s motivations throughout their childhood as “phases”. “Yeah, this whole thing with blogging, is just a phase… it will pass”.

Suppose you are a top student who got only good grades and now is in high school, discovering the more “forbidden” pleasures of the world. Suppose you start painting, driven by vision and motivated by other artists that make your heart melt. And suppose you start neglecting school for art. Your parents’ reaction will be what I wrote at the beginning of the article.

If you didn’t have good grades, I think it would have been worse, because they would immediately put pressure on you to learn more, instead of encouraging you to find your passions.

Let me be clear. Most of the parents will not try to help their kids to find their passions. That is something left for you to discover. What they will do, instead, if they are not supportive,  is they will implant their own set of values and priorities in your head, to drain more satisfaction from you.

If you have supportive parents, who live happy lives and who encourage you to be what you want to be, without interfering with your vision, then is no need for you to read further.

If you, however, have the kind of parents I’m talking about here, you should read further.

First of all, the conflict between school and art is huge. There are many talented teenagers who are not in artistic high schools simply because the great majority of artitic high schools suck. Your parents will try to find a more suitable high school for you just because art and artistic high school don’t provide the potential of a good career and a big salary a realistic high school provides.

First of all, they will put pressure on you with school because:

  1. That’s how they got a job and money to raise you;
  2. They didn’t have the chance to do it (or didn’t want it), and now they regret it and want you to not have the same regret as them.

And basically everything becomes a war between your personal values and your parents personal values. You want to be an artist, but your parents want for you a career in a safer work domain. Parents are not malefic creatures who want to kill your potential career, but they see your potential career as the career they were unable to have. They are projecting themselves into you because they lack self-fulfillment.

But if they stopped at the “School-problem”, it would have been a lot easier. But they don’t do that. Instead, they are doing their most of effort to put an end to your dreams as  an artist because they fear for you and don’t have confidence in yout abilities.

Recognize that there is no way in the world they know what’s best for you. Hell, in many cases, you have friends who know you better than your parents. By letting you parents to intervene between you and your vision, you are not only fucking you entire passion and potential career as what you want to be, but you are transforming yourself into them. You will also become unfulfilled and unhappy.

You have to do what you feel, regardless of their opinion. If you have vision, you should not let yourself influenced by anybody.

But don’t judge your parents so fast. Try to look for their background and to find out what has been an obstacle between them and their dreams. Maybe it was their parents too. Or is just society that is always trying to drain productivity and offer nothing in return. Treat them with empathy and don’t let yourself be influenced by anybody. Vision is what you should have as a young artist. Inner drive will come as you start improving your art.

Forget about supportiveness. You shall not need it, as you will interfere in life with people who are trying to fuck you and your career. You parents don’t usually want to do that. They are just trying to make you a fulfilled man, but they are using their own set of values to do it, not yours. That is a mistake and you have to be able to point that out. Be honest with your parents and let them see your vision. Recognize that your standards of a happy life and their standards might be different, and this is ok. You don’t have to be repsonsible for the fact that they have a different vision.

If they can’t understand this and still refuse to support you or, at least to stop mocking you, remember this: you don’t need nobody’s support. The satisfaction you encounter after getting through a great deal of shit just to be what you wanted to be will be fucking huge. Stop looking for support and start looking for a way of living happy.

Peace!