What's the point of having a career.
Posted by Strange_Slide9611@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 79 comments
I wanted to be an artist and create a franchise of my own, but by the way the world is in right now, I don't think it's even possible to be an artist when everything is going to shit with the environment, economy, politics, and everything, I have to be born in one of the worst time periods out there right next to the great depression and the second world war because I started to have this feeling just to quite and see no point in wanting to have a dream to even entertain the masses when they are fighting each other constantly on the street and across social media and everyone is becoming a doomer and I expected the future to be like the Jetsons but all we have for the future is Fallout, what is the point of being an artist.I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to build something of my own—create a world, a franchise, something that mattered. But looking at the world now, I don’t even know if that’s possible anymore.
Everything feels like it’s falling apart. The environment is collapsing, the economy feels unstable, politics are tearing people apart, and everywhere you look, it’s just chaos. It feels like I was born into one of the worst possible eras—like some echo of the Great Depression or World War II, just dressed in modern technology.
And it’s exhausting.
People are constantly at each other’s throats—on the streets, online, everywhere. There’s this constant noise of anger, fear, and hopelessness. Everyone’s becoming a doomer, and it’s hard not to get pulled into that mindset. I used to imagine the future as something hopeful—something bright, like The Jetsons—but now it feels closer to Fallout.
So what’s the point?
dinah-fire@reddit
Imagine for a moment with me that you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It's scary, it's awful, it isn't fair, it isn't what you wanted or expected, everything about the trajectory of life you thought you'd have is gone. What do you do now?
What we're witnessing is a society with a terminal illness. You can still find joy in what you have now, just like a person with a terminal illness can enjoy and make the most of every moment they have left. After all, we're all born with a terminal illness--it's called life. Societies rise and fall. We still have a ton of agency in how we respond to the cards we're dealt and we can still make the most of the life we're living every day, even in the face of that.
nothankeww@reddit
take my poor woman’s reward because that’s how I look at it as well 🏆
InternetPeon@reddit
Make art about how you feel.
FlashyIndependent592@reddit
Now you are free to be an actual artist. Art for money is a job like any other. You create a product and then sell it, or someone else (a studio) sells it for you. I have been doing the art for money thing for 20 years, the only things that I have created that I cared about are works outside of the for profit game. We create because it is in our DNA, do not let economics get in the way of that. Read some Marx, understand why the system makes you feel invalidated. Then create a work giving the finger to the whole system. Be an artist.
Strange_Slide9611@reddit (OP)
I'm more worried about social collapse coming from climate change and resource wars happening either in the 2030s to the 2050s.
Turbulent-Beauty@reddit
I wouldn’t be surprised if better art, literature, and music were created during and after the collapse than before. The Blues will be more heartfelt again.
Minimumtyp@reddit
The punk can't possibly get angrier, either
Effective-Ebb-2805@reddit
It's already happening, friend. It has been happening for some years. It's just been on a scale and time frame that we have a hard time perceiving. The boiling frog analogy is right on...
uncommonsense95@reddit
Suffering is one of the greatest inspirations for art. Use it, set yourself on fire (not literally), bleed for it.
FlashyIndependent592@reddit
We all are. So paint, write, compose, sculpt or whatever your medium is, about it. Expression is the point of art, no?
Ok_Main3273@reddit
OP, please, do follow your passion and become an artist nonetheless. If only to alleviate the sense of "anger, fear, and hopelessness" in all of us. Make us dream away, jump into an imaginary world far from this Fallout time period, or simply look into your mirrors so that we might finally find out where we are and what we have done. Artists like you are here exactly to do that. Best wishes.
Slamtilt_Windmills@reddit
Let is great, it will help you personally. And after everything falls apart, when the dust settles, art will be useful and important, and there may be some applicable skills depending on your medium.
It may make you feel better to imagine ypu vs a middle manager trying to justify their existence in the aftermath
Strange_Slide9611@reddit (OP)
But there will be no audience and no fans at all.
LeftHookRightField@reddit
Your art likely sucks anyway based on your attitude, so forget about it.
collapse-ModTeam@reddit
Rule 1: In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.
Soag@reddit
Post-apocalyptic travelling jester is a possible job title. Maybe you could become paint portraits for a local warlords to win their favour. If you give up now though you’ll probs end up as meat on the human kebab spike
hereforthebeers@reddit
Buddy, I mean this with all kindness; from reading your post and replies, I would guess if you weren’t stressing so hard about collapse, mentally unchecked, you would still be stressing about other stuff.
I say this as a young person who also thinks these are collapsing times. But there’s so many what ifs in life that you can easily waste the time you have worrying about the future. What if your art sucks and no one wants to be your fan? What if you get hit by a car? What if you get your brain eaten by that scary screw tape parasite? In that sense, you are no different than any human who has ever lived. Different worries, but same ability to look death in the eyes and choose to create something beautiful, or not. That is art. That is life. That is the human experience.
Again, with all kindness, you are no different than any other human that has ever lived. You are choosing to succumb to an external focus of control (aka victim mentality) that robs you of this gift of being able to create a life that is uniquely your own (internal focus of control).
I’d even be one of your first customers. Make me a memento mori, any medium, whatever skill level you are at. Put all your thoughts, worries, everything into it. I’ll hang it on my wall, and be a fan of your art knowing you chose, at least for one day, to stare death in the eyes and decided to live anyway.
deviantion@reddit
As someone who also wants to make art despite feeling terrified), your comment hit right in the heart.
deviantion@reddit
As someone who also wants to make art despite feeling terrified), your comment hit right in the heart.
Turbulent-Beauty@reddit
Excellent comment.
ChiefRayBear@reddit
That's just not true. Build it and they will come. You aren't a true artist if you can't make something worthwhile. Just believe in what you are doing. I understand where you are coming from genuinely.
But I am an artist as well and there are people dying to see something made from creative passion to distract them from AI bullshit and the terrible happenings around the globe. Give people hope.
Turbulent-Beauty@reddit
There probably will be. The fanbase might just be 1/100 the size. However, quality is more important than quantity in this regard and almost every other. One fan that loves your work intensely is better than 100 who kind of like it.
Whether there is an audience or not, art yearns to be made. A skilled artist brings life to their work, and afterward it’s almost like the artwork has a life of its own.
Brofromtheabyss@reddit
I suspect you are young. I did the whole art school thing, BFA, MFA, independent studio practice, the works and in the end I had to look elsewhere to earn a living, but I still make art in my own modest way. If art is really something you love, you’ll find out you keep making it even if nobody on earth cares. If it turns out you just wanted acclaim, that’s okay, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but you’ll learn that for 99.9% of artists (and no, I’m not exaggerating that ratio) art is a terrible way to get it. You won’t believe me for now, it takes time, but it’s okay, you’ll get there and when you do, it won’t hurt, it’ll be liberating.
DestroyTheMatrix_3@reddit
Even in the stone age there was an audience. People drew cave painting and told tales of mythological beings in front of a campfire. If there are two humans, there is an audience.
justprettymuchdone@reddit
And yet, the art will remain. And have been worth doing.
Tetraphosphate_@reddit
Vincent Van Gogh didn't have a following until after his death
jonraexercise@reddit
Make some art. You don’t get to decide if it’s popular. A career in art has been incredibly difficult for every human being since forever.
SDF8Man@reddit
use a career for free training in a skill you wish to personally develop. an example would be becoming an emt to gain emergency medicine experience.
25TiMp@reddit
The point of having a career is to eat, and to not end up homeless. If you don't mind not knowing where your next meal is coming from, than you do not need a career.
Careful_Disaster6566@reddit
I really understand where you're coming from, and am experiencing this in all aspects of life too. Remind yourself that no matter what the world looks like in the future, you will always look back and wish you did more of what made you happy. The things we're all feeling right now are very intentional. They want us to be too scared to work, care, create, or even live. Fucking rebel.
Rather than feeling sad, hopeless, etc, use these difficult emotions to create art. Think of all the amazing art that has come from times similar to or at least as dire as this.
For me, I think of the Civil Rights Movement. Barbershops, bbqs, games, music, art... all these things had a significant role in the civil rights movement, as did the Panthers, Malcolm X, and Dr. King. You need happiness, joy, and hope as much as you do anger, violence, and fed-up-ness during a revolution.
I know we are just being knocked down over and over again, but are you gonna pick yourself up and keep fighting, or are you gonna let it win?
JackBlackBowserSlaps@reddit
People are gonna want/need distraction more and more as this progresses. Maybe don’t make it your day job, but I think there will be ample opportunity to reach people with art.
nothankeww@reddit
it’s OK, to grieve for the life that you wanted and you’re not gonna get
gwuhu@reddit
hey, life is fleeting, with collapse or not, and again collapse is uncertain, it could come 10 or 20 or 50 or maybe 100 years later, everything you see in this sub is just a mere prediction with only some degree of certainty
If you want to create and achieve something, do it, so you don't die with regrets later on
we will all die someday, collapse or not, so live the life you wanted and fulfill your aspiration
37iteW00t@reddit
Right now the world needs all the artists, musicians, playwrights, actors, singers, entertainers, comedians etc., more than ever.
rad_wasp@reddit
What's the point? You are alive! Maybe you have a career in art, maybe you don't. But that does not mean you are not an artist and it does not make your art worthless. You'll keep on living and doing what you must, and some of what you must do is make art. "The point" is as arbitrary now as it was twenty, fifty, one hundred, or one thousand years ago. You're alive. Make art about it. Maybe you die some horrible tragic death with the rest of us, but at least you'll have said something while you were here. It's more than some others will have, and, more importantly, it's what you have to work with. You can despair at your tools or use them.
Strange_Slide9611@reddit (OP)
Yes, but what I really want to know is, how long we actually have. How long before things really start to break—before the United States fractures, before order slips and people start calling it “anarchy” instead of just instability. How long before the climate pushes people out of their homes, before entire regions become unlivable. How long before resources run thin enough that countries start fighting over what’s left. Before those conflicts spiral into something worse—something global, something nuclear. How much time is there, really? Are we talking about the 2030s? The 2050s? Or, if I’m optimistic —anything— that maybe it stretches to 2100.
eyewave@reddit
Check WEF's agenda 2030
gothgeetar@reddit
Nobody on the planet knows dude. I don’t know why you think there’s some magical person in here who will tell you exactly when collapse will happen. I think to live your life based on a timeline estimate someone on Reddit gives you is pure idiocracy anyways. Live your life and do what you want to do. Also my mental state got so much better when I stopped checking this subreddit frequently
loralailoralai@reddit
Maybe it’s any of those times, maybe it’s longer. You sitting there complaining about not knowing when it will happen just wastes your time. Make your art. Live your best life despite what might happen.
You don’t want to hit 75 and things still be ok and regretting not starting because you were afraid.
GridDown55@reddit
The point is to learn skills that can help people?
eyewave@reddit
I mean sure but in the time you learn skills you may die from starvation and then some.
I have had my one shot in my 20s, studying chemistry for 5 years, and now I rose to a comfortable enough position.
But I don't feel I will ever want to take such a risk again, should my career come to a rut. So of coyrse it makes me anxious, because the pay is good and I don't want to step back in my comfort that I've built.
Ambitious-Let-7563@reddit
lol I could’ve written that. I’m a designer and video editor and I paint, make music. Dude I feel the same, especially with AI and AI agents taking away my job and art.
I mourned and was depressed for a long time but I don’t care anymore. I’m learning blender now, painting more than ever, I just don’t care.
Cover your ass, have a stable job if possible, prepare for turmoil in the future and just create. If you feel pain or despair, vomit that into your art. To hell with the rest, you might die tomorrow cause of a drunk driver, you might live to 80. All you have is now
Timely_Internet6172@reddit
Less time online and more time outside, preferrably in nature.
Doctor's order.
jbond23@reddit
No matter what you choose, you still have to work out what to do with your day when you get up. So try and make a difference and have fun doing it.
Felt the same way in the 70s. Now I'm 70. Was really, really lucky to fall into computing just as the PC appeared. Had a family, made a little money. "OK, Doomer".
TheEPGFiles@reddit
There's no point, capitalist society has no ideology, has no morals beyond the mercenary.
SGRM_@reddit
I like eating and sleeping in a bed with clean sheets. I can't keep doing those things without working.
switchsk8r@reddit
especially with a job i forget to wash my sheets
No-Papaya-9289@reddit
“I have to be born in one of the worst time periods out there right next to the great depression and the second world war”
Read some history.
Boremanfreeman@reddit
Wellbutrin exists
GalaxyPatio@reddit
For now but probably not for long
switchsk8r@reddit
that's why im apprehensive to start meds. what can ya do
old-legs-623@reddit
I admire the band that played on as the Titanic tilted beneath them.
kingtacticool@reddit
There isn't. We have so little tine left the obly thing that makes sense is learning as many useful trades as you can and keep building the robust support network you should have already started.
Thats if you intend on surviving which im not so im just shitposting on reddit and jerking off as often as possible.
Strange_Slide9611@reddit (OP)
But for how long, we are in a ticking time bomb right now and trying to guess when social collapse could occur it could be the 2030s or the 2050s we just don't know when and how long we have.
Turbulent-Beauty@reddit
Pretend you live in the USSR in the 1980s. Do you make art or not?
kingtacticool@reddit
The US is going to be insolvent by the mid 2030s. This is a fact. We definitely dont have until the 2050s at least in America.
Now would be the time to buy some acreage in the middle of nowhere with a good well, good soil and a big enough house to keep 20-30 people that you trust super duper well that have different skills and can share the labor involved in security, growing and maintaing crops/animals.
I dont know the relative political security for the rest of the world but the main threat of climate change isn't rising seas or bad weather. It'll be the hundreds of millions of climate refugees. So being way far away from population centers and self sufficient is going to be important
PreptheFlep@reddit
Theres a Differenzen between your inner need to create art and your inner need to create success trough art. If success is your reason to pursue art, youre never becoming an artist.
storage_god@reddit
cuz what else are you gonna do
Oscion@reddit
Do it for yourself, why not? We’re gonna be burning might as well get a taste of your dream while you can. The memories won’t fade during your destruction so they can keep you comfort while the world ends. It’s why I’m continuing even though my hope is dead.
CrimsonBolt33@reddit
Art is, and frankly always has been an oversaturated field....you shouldprobably focus on overcoming that first.
To compare now with the great depression and WW2 is frankly absurd....we are way better off right now.
Awatts2222@reddit
It's the greatest time in the world to be an artist.
It's time when the political, economic and environmental system are on the verge of collapse
that art as has had the greatest meaning.
Ok_Repeat_1995@reddit
There is no point. But make sure the alternate non career life is worth giving up a career over.
bluemagic124@reddit
It’s gonna be a slow burn. Faster than expected for sure, but you need to survive in the interim. Now go make that line go up babyyyy
wendyme1@reddit
Maybe look at r/solarpunk
king_barnicus@reddit
If you’re in a western country , healthy and able, odds are you’ll spend the next 20-30 years in relative comfort, doing nothing of substance and waiting for “the end.” You’ll waste your life.
Make the most of the time you have, while you have it.
NyriasNeo@reddit
"So what’s the point?"
I don't know about you. For me, my career (scientific research) is about doing something fun and interesting. Sure, I make a decent living too. What more can I ask.
BronzeSpoon89@reddit
You are either a person who is paralyzed by all that stuff, or you are not. You are a person who is not designed to take risks during uncertain times. It's not bad or good. It just is. Evolution creates all kinds.
heathen_worldwide@reddit
Truth be told...and i say this as an artist...the only stipulation to being an artist is that you make art...anything above that is conditions you've decided
obscure_predation@reddit
Very elaborate selfdefeatism right here
winston_obrien@reddit
No. This is the time for art.
Rokea-x@reddit
Art is amazing and essential.
All you are writing tells me that you are probably on social networks too much.
Close it all. FULL break for a few months. And travel (solo/backpack on the cheap). You will see that most people are nice, and not at each other’s throat.
And it will likely feed your inspiration
sorry97@reddit
I love art!
We are living creatures that need to express themselves by any means. Art is what gives other people a glimpse into our inner world, be it through words, sculptures, handcrafting…
Why not make a piece inspired by your sorrow? I like to write every now and then and… while they aren’t the greatest pieces, they do reverberate through the inner shades of people. That’s the whole point, that bond we make with others, after realising we’ve come through similar paths (precisely why we have “mirror neurons”).
Yes, the future is dark and gloom, but you know what? Here we are, idling away with the unwanted gift that is life.
Remember that from chaos came order! All mythos trace back their origins to some sort of chaos after all. While imho… it’s just the canvas of all of our conscious efforts manifesting to understand the greater works. Hence why you’ll see similar stories from one side of the world to the other. After all, lullabies and fairy tales have some truth to them.
VascularBoat69@reddit
I’d suggest you do art as a hobby or side income as many people can lose their passion when the stress of making money is involved. For main income it just needs to be something you can tolerate at minimum and if you enjoy it that’s a great bonus. But If your dream is starting your own company I would still say it’s worth a try as fucked as things are these days.
I believe without nuclear war we still have another 20-30 yrs of slow decline before things fall apart fast. Point being, we still need to feed and house ourselves in the meantime and it’s important to enjoy the things in life we still can.
I really don’t like working for a company but can at least tolerate the work and I know many have it much worse. All the concerns you have are valid and you have every right to be pissed at the world but keep some inner peace and do what you can to support yourself and those you care about
The3rdGodKing@reddit
I’m in the same situation except as in a videogame. There’s nothing we can do to save the Earth so just check off your bucket list.
Bannnerman@reddit
Respectfully, I would consider “art” a viable career.
Sincerely, mechanical engineer married to an attorney
The3rdGodKing@reddit
Well you never tried it so how is that helping?
SinisterOculus@reddit
Art is necessary in a world that's burning. Bringing people, including yourself, even a momentary spark of joy is the only way to stave off total obliteration. The wealthy, pedophilic elite and the corporations (one and the same) are relying on us all being totally defeated.
Konradleijon@reddit
I have the idea of jobs
Konradleijon@reddit
I don’t know to feed be corporate machine