EPTI'm 23 years old and the world is my oyster. I've been told I have so much I can do from here yet I feel so pigeon holed with my career already.
Since I could watch television I've had a desire to be a part of the animation industry. There's just something about pixar films, disney films and the great japanese animated feature films that fills my heart with great joy. I wanted to be a "cartoonist". Since I was in single digits, I didn't make the distinction between animator, storyboarder or panel comic artist. I wanted to do it all.
The film Jurassic Park also had great influence on me when I was around 5 years old. I wanted to be a paleontologist. I used to read books upon books about dinosaurs, and draw my own comics which involved shamelessly plagiarizing Jurassic park.
Somewhere along the way to high school I fell in love with flight. I loved birds and fighter jets. I wanted to be a pilot. Now somehow through passage of a couple of years it translated to aerospace engineering. I don't really know how. I guess because I turned out to be a skinny nerd, so I figured I didn't have the physical capabilities of being a pilot. I squashed the idea before it festered. My first regret.
During the middle of high school my love for comic books began. It started with a manga called love hina, and from that point on I felt like one of the things I absolutely must do with my life is get my own comic book published. Mind you I was reading newspaper comics and archie comics since primary school but this was the first book which made me realise how much fun comics could really be.
Art became my antidepressant and stress relief. While studying math and the sciences was interesting, it could also be stressful, where art was always fun.
At some point in time near the end of high school I got it in my head that I cant have comic book making as a full time job. I need to get a real job. So i made a plan.The plan was:
- get high TER when I graduate high school .
- get good engineering degree.
- get good paying job.
- use engineering job to support myself while I make my own comics.
I was initially planning to select aerospace. but in that final year of high school I decided money was what mattered. And for that reason I changed my degree to petroleum engineering. My second regret.
Somewhere during the first semester of university I realised something about petroleum engineering. I hated it. I actually seriously considered changing my degree to paleontology. When I voiced the idea of changing my degree I was reassured that the first few years are boring and it gets more interesting as you progress in the degree. I was easily convinced to continue on with it. Besides, I'll get money in the end and i still draw pictures in my spare time so that's alright.
In the middle of my engineering degree I discovered FZD. My plan changed.
- get petroleum engineering degree.
- get good job in oil company.
- quit job when i have enough money to pay tuition for FZD diploma + living expenses in Singapore .
- use concept art job to support myself while I make my own comics.
Enter the final year of university. Honours year. Worst year of my life. Hate it. Never want to experience it again. No time for drawing, no time for going to the gym, no time to even cook my own meals. On top of stressing on my honours thesis I had to worry about landing that job once university finished. While getting continually rejected through the screening phone interview I worked with very little sleep and spent months where every weekend i spent in a windowless, dreary, depressing computer lab.To top it off the project turned out to be complete trash. I don't want to spend too much time explaining why, but ultimately the research was not publish able. I worked very hard that final year. I spent every waking hour at university, sacrificing my health and sacrificing my art. I needed the plan to work. I hadn't anticipated not being able to land a job.
For around a year after I finished university I was unemployed and extremely depressed. After a while I lost all motivation to do anything . My life was at a stand still. I was perpetually stressing over my financial situation and my 4 year investment not returning. I started playing video games to forget all my worries. Wasting time. Going no where. I sent the head of school an email regarding my woes.
He said it was a rather strange case. Usually people with my grades land a job. Maybe it had something to do the GFC. I don't think the GFC had much to do with me not getting a job. I thought it was because I was bad at interviews. He said that there's still another opportunity for PHD with the professor I did honours with. My initial response was no. i remembered working with this man.My parents wanted me to get out of the house. They wanted me to stop wasting time playing video games.
Eventually living at home became too depressing. I submitted an application for the PHD. This time I won't work so hard though. This time I'll do more planning and not spend huge amounts of hours trying to force a result out. I know myself, and I need time to practice my drawings.
I started studying for my PHD 6 months ago. My professor told me two weeks ago that I don't work hard enough. With the rate I'm going at I'm 75% likely to end up with a mediocre finish. One thing I've noticed is I'm not the same student I used to be in honours. I don't work 10 to 12 hours a day at university anymore. I do probably half that. I believe that my lax work schedule has created some friction between our relationship. I just don't care enough about the project anymore. I only care about my drawings now.
Roughly 36 hours ago I was at mumbai airport waiting to fly home. i saw the pilots followed by an entourage of flight attendants. They had neat clothes, slick hair and perfect skin. They were all smiling. Their job is really nice. They must get a lot of satisfaction. I wanted to be a pilot once.
I wanted to be an aerospace engineer once.
I wanted to be a paleontologist once.
I want to be an artist now.
reflecting on this I feel like I've been talked out of anything interesting I've ever wanted to do. "Not strong enough." "Not a real job." "You're a smart boy, why don't you be a doctor." "You're good at maths, why don't you be an engineer." "It's High pay." "This job is well respected." I've been told that I cant be realistic. That making a living off of art is unrealistic. It's now more than ever I feel like continuing this PHD and expecting a job after is unrealistic. If I continue this doctorate I'm going to end in a mediocre finish. The same thing that happened two years ago is going to happen again. I'm going to spend 3 years working on this PHD then fail horribly when it comes to the interviews. Because deep down I don't love this work enough. Compared to the other PHD students I work with, I have a pretty trash work ethic.
One of my biggest regrets was not trusting myself. During the first semester I knew I hated petroleum engineering. I knew I could have switched out. I knew at that point I should have reconsidered what to do with my life. Maybe exiting the PHD will lead to exiting this career choice. Maybe I'll burn that bridge that I spent 5 years building. For some reason I'm ok with that. I see it as sunk costs.
What I want to do right now is spend a year or two devoted entirely trying to make a career off of art. I've seen how capable I am of honing my artistic skills while managing all this other shit. I want to see how far I can go when I devote all my working hours to studying art. I've seen other artists do it, and I don't see myself as less capable than them. I believe in myself. I can make this happen.
I've been writing for nearly 3 or 4 hours. its 6am soon and my professor is probably expecting me at uni today to show him some completed pile of work that I haven't bothered investing time in finishing yet. Right now I'm more interested in figuring out how to start a career I actually want.
![[image loading]](http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/043/1/4/ariel_by_saurabhinator-d768q3l.png)
