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For you, there could be nothing more useless or unproductive. As young people choosing a field of study are often told: do not choose art, because art does not pay.
Yet despite this long-standing discouragement, millions of people today choose the path of art, investing not only time and energy but also money in their artistic education. They do so even though they know that they may well fail to achieve their aims, given the inner and social difficulties that choosing art entails. The high likelihood of failure reflects both an educational system oriented toward employment and the decline of many schools that do not truly teach the discipline of art. Nevertheless, despite these prospects, people do not always choose the material path: they want to do what they love, rather than what they are told they ought to do.
To many outsiders, choices seemingly destined to end in failure make little sense. To us, however, it is clear that their motivations arise from within, rather than from favorable external circumstances.
Of course, each of us tends to believe that the fate of others will not be our own: that even if a thousand people fail and only one succeeds, we will somehow be the one who manages both to live for art and to make a living from art. Even so, choosing this path requires courage and an inner drive that we might call motivation.
Often something even deeper lies behind this motivation: a vocation.
Sometimes it feels as though your vocation compels you to pursue its fulfillment. Otherwise the cost is far greater than unemployment: a profound dissatisfaction and frustration, experienced as a kind of inner betrayal, a deep sense of contradiction.
Choosing a deeper and more specialized spiritual education should therefore not be based primarily on material criteria or future profit—important though these considerations are—but on one’s own inner need, the same need that has led you thus far along this path.
>>> Further reading
Spiritual development in art: a choice for the future