128 lines
6.5 KiB
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128 lines
6.5 KiB
Plaintext
Mike Monteiro’s Good News logo
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[1] Mike Monteiro’s Good News [2]
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Archive
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September 11, 2024
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How many hobbies is too many?
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[5]Two identical paintings. Each painting is two panels. The top panels is a
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black and white word balloon that says GENOCIDE IS PAINLESS. The bottom panel
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is a anthropomorphized slice of watermelon.Couple little paintings I did this
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week for reasons.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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This week’s question comes to us from Gord Fynes:
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How many hobbies is too many? There's only so many hours in the day, days in
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the week, etc.
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One. One hobby is too many.
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I hate hobbies. Rather, I hate calling things hobbies. The word hobby is almost
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always used apologetically. It carries a certain amount of shame, an element of
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wasted time, or at least time not well-spent, certainly time spent not
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“earning.” And therein lies the problem.
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Let’s get personal. When I was a kid, my father “earned” by doing construction
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work. He’d leave early in the morning and come home caked in cement from laying
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foundations. He was not a happy person to be around. He hated his job and he
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took it out on his family. After dinner, which was never pleasant, he would
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either disappear out the door or disappear into the basement.
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The basement was off limits to us. It’s where he painted. Years later, I got
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brave enough to go door there. Behind a curtained-off area, I found a workbench
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full of intricately painted tiles, always in blue. I found coffee cans full of
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brushes, some of them carefully handmade. And I found family photographs taped
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to the wall. All of this was new to me, and I couldn’t understand why someone
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who was always so full of rage towards me would have my school photo taped to
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the wall above his workbench. In some ways I still don’t.
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As years passed, his secret became less of a secret. He’d occasionally bring a
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tile up and hang it in the kitchen. Eventually, I’d learn the tiles were called
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azulejos. Eventually, I’d learn that he was a trained azulejo painter in his
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native Portugal, and well-regarded for it. Then he immigrated to the United
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States where he laid cement to earn for his family. And I wondered what he
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would’ve been like if he could’ve spent his life doing what he loved.
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Selfishly, I wondered what my life would’ve been like if he could’ve spent his
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life doing what he loved.
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As more years passed, my father realized I had some form of artistic talent and
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I was allowed behind the curtain, especially if he needed lettering. He sucked
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at lettering.
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When I decided I wanted to go to art school, my mother objected, but my father
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did not. And while this did not make up for years of abuse, it was nonetheless
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appreciated.
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I hate hobbies. Hobbies end up being curtained-off room in the basement where
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we hide the life we wish we could be living.
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In my own adult life, I do lots of things. I design shit. I paint. I do
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workshops. I make zines. I write. I love doing all of those things, and I
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manage to do some of them for money. But to me they are equally important. And
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while I have to acknowledge that all of this takes a certain amount of luck and
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privilege, it also takes a plan.
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When we started our design shop (the money work), one of the first things we
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did was set boundaries for ourselves. We worked from 9–6 and from
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Monday–Friday. I never sold my weekends, and I never lived beyond my means in a
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way that required me to sell my weekends. As time went on I did all I could to
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reduce the things I did for money so I could spend time doing the things I
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enjoyed that didn’t make money. Both things were equally important.
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Is this privileged? Yes. Is this a privilege that we need to extend to every
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human being on earth? Also fucking yes, in a big way. (And if we have the money
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to fund a genocide, we have the money for UBI.)
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Hobby is capitalism’s word. It’s a crumb from capitalism’s table. Capitalism is
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happy that you have a hobby, especially if it can sell you HO-scale train sets
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to complete it, but that hobby can never be taken as seriously as what
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capitalism might need from you. (Oh, and that thing capitalism might need from
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you? Well, design is your passion, so they don’t really need to pay you
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adequately for that, do they?)
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Sadly, capitalism is still with us, and we need to earn. So when you have to
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clock in, clock in. And when you clock out, clock the fuck out. Take off that
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stupid watch that sends texts and emails to your wrist. Toss your laptop in the
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basement. Get behind that drumkit, get in front of that easel, get your ass in
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the garden, straddle that potter’s wheel, strap on the messenger bag with all
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your paint cans and nozzles in it, and get the fuck to work.
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All those are work.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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🙋 Got a question? [6]Ask it.
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📖 [7]Ordering zines means I can spend more time painting. Plus, you get
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stickers and a zine.
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👎 An industry that can’t hold on to the people it most needs is [8]an industry
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that doesn’t deserve air. Vivianne is a friend, and I am so proud of everything
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she’s done.
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📻 I’ve been enjoying the new podcast [9]Rebel Spirit from Akilah Hughes,
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produced by my friend Dan Sinker.
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Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to Mike Monteiro’s Good News:
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References:
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[1] https://buttondown.com/monteiro
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[5] https://www.worldsgreatestartist.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many
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[6] https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many
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[7] https://www.designisajob.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many
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[8] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7239687397918056448/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many
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[9] https://omny.fm/shows/rebel-spirit/episode-1-a-homecoming-1?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-many-hobbies-is-too-many
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[12] https://buttondown.com/
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