Not Ashamed: Ambitiously Pursuing My Dreams

If you haven't already, please read the introduction post. That will give you context for this page.

Ambition has its pitfalls. I'm not going to pretend it doesn't. For the sake of fulfilling ambitions, people have lied, cheated, stolen, and done all manner of other immoral and unethical things. They've thoughtlessly ruined relationships. They've lived with only their own personal glory in mind.

I'm not here to say that all ambitious pursuit ought to be free of shame. Nope. I fully advocate shame for some people and the way they pursue what they do.

But I've examined both my dreams and my intentions. I don't just know what I want, but I also know why I want those things. And I see no shame in wanting success with my music or my writing, nor do I see shame in the reasons I want that success. (I won't elaborate here, but there's a list of reasons, and they have nothing to do with personal glory.)

There are two ways in which my pursuits of my ambitions are seen as a reason for shame, in addition to the reasons listed in my rock musician and scifi writer essays.

First, some people look at what they see as the personal cost of my pursuit. Working hard takes time and resources. How can I "waste" those on what I do? As I explain, I believe that talents are like divine callings. If you have a talent, there is something you are meant to do with it. I think that the purpose doesn't just vary talent to talent, but person to person. I've done what I can to figure out how my talents are best spent. And, in the past, I have tried to live a life where I didn't give that my all, but spent my time and resources on more "normal" and less-criticised things. I felt...hollow and incomplete.

I don't take lightly the impact of my actions on others. I try to be mindful. But I also recognise I won't do it perfectly; none of us can make it through life without causing some upset, hurting some feelings. I do my best. I'm sorry that not everyone approves. But I feel no shame. (The only time I feel shame, a shame that sits deep in me and can't be talked away, is when I don't give everything I can to making the best of my talents. And then I am miserable. So those whose judgement seems rooted in the fact that I'm not social with them as often as they'd like, I'd say you either aren't a true friend--cos you'd rather I be miserable so you can hang out with me--or you haven't thought this through.)

The other way in which my pursuits are seen as a reason for shame have specifically to do with the realm of my ambitions. If I were ambitious to the same degree but it were business, law, medicine, and things like that, I'd be spared this particular set of judgements. Because there are those, including those amoungst my friends, who believe that the only pure ambitions in the arts are those that have to do with making your best art. The instant you also admit that you wouldn't mind if you got paid for it (you know, being paid to do what I love, like non-artistic people can do without judgement...being able to focus all my time on the art instead of having to give my whole day to a "day job" and cramming bits of art into my evening...) or that you see benefits in being known by people other than your friends, you're suspect and a sell-out and a defiler of art.

Ehm, no. I'm working to make authentic art that speaks to me and is high quality. Your limited capacity to conceive of a situation where one can be true to art and hope that truth helps pay the rent doesn't sound like a cause for me to feel shame...(It's okay. Pause a moment, reassess, change your mind. See, now you're good? Didn't change your mind? Well, now you know a topic you're best not pressing me on.)

Because I continue to work hard towards my dreams and to do that without shame.