Living in a house/flat together
With 1-2 holidays a year...
Below is a summary of how I think we could view our main choices:
1) A complete forfeiting of family life for the pursuit of artist mastery.
2) The want for the balance of a family life and the opportunity for significant creativity.
3) Art as an outlet/hobby with family life being the main desire/consideration.
"...knowing that it could be suicide to our creativity, we devote all our time and money to creation."
For some, the freedom to create at any time and any where is paramount to their life, and that liberty to do so would be put before all things and people. But for other artists, the duality of being a creative must be coupled with something greater, even if it is to be in tandem. In ones struggle to be significantly noticed as a creative force, it seems prevalent, that artists (male & female) have to make too many sacrifices, in order to have the time to create. And therefore, many miss out on opportunities of socialising, or deliberately forever delay their chance of promotion in social spheres, as our meagre circumstances deny us the route to forming steady relationships, engagements, marriage and kids.
Forfeiting the forming of a significant relationships, knowing that it could be suicide to our creativity, we devote all our time and money to creation, knowing that if we as men embarked in a relationship, that this same time and money would be put into crafting the relationship instead of our art. And especially in the early days where we don't often have the monies to sufficiently do both, something has to give. Hence why this article is a male affair because nowhere in any society I know of, is the female supposed to be the financial leader in the forming of a relationship. I am not saying that women can't or are not, but it is never expected.
All these arrested interactions by men, who want a relationship can be likened to receiving mini razor blade cuts. Slowly stinging ourselves out of human existence, we eventually accumulate so much blood loss, that the use of plasters is completely useless. 'Hey world I'm bleeding and it's kinda self-inflicted'. Understand that the blood is our ranking in the public world of eligibility and right now we're looking very anaemic.
But perhaps, just perhaps we 'not made it yet' artistic men are putting too much pressure on ourselves, maybe our view and understanding of what a woman wants is limited. Surely some women will understand our struggle, as they too are going through their own artistic saga. And some women might even enjoy the joint adventure of rising together.
Nothing is written in stone, I can't provide all the answers with the exception of saying; be aware of yourself and your true desire. Then as you engage with the world to find out what your deal in life is, engage with the world to find her who will accept you as you are.
Ray, What Do You Think?
IK