Having an at home job sounds like a dream.
Like an all-week vacation. And it can be, for us free-lancers – if we do what we should. But I personally forget sometimes that workaholism is just a chemical substitute that can cause a rainbow flavored array of problems. As Heath Ledger’s Joker once eloquently said, “Madness, as you know, is a lot like gravity .It only takes a little push.” And if you’re like me, perhaps you’re a little bit mad to begin with… so having an occupation where you’re alone and trusting your own think-organ can be dangerous. So here are some telltale signs that you just might need to leave the old computer machine, studio, or whatever it is you starving artists do to survive one debt crisis to the next.
1. Dressing The Part?
How do you dress for “work”? (Dr. Phil voice: “..n hyow’s that werkin’ out fer ya?”)
I can do pretty much anything in running tights – from giving into cultural ADHD and forgetting it’s type time – to doing so much work that I don’t fit in other parts of human living. But the only thing worse than getting distracted while donning form fitting clothes, is getting distracted when I’m dressed like a fleecey amoeba. I’ve made that mistake and procrasturbation sessions last far longer in the latter case. You don’t need to dress like you would if you were heading to another miserable day of Initech. That’s not why we took an at-home gig, is it? But do dress as if the Creativity Gestapo’s set the hounds after you, because it has. As for this lunatic right here? I get some of my best ideas when I’m exercising – so I wear what I would to workout. And it totally helps.
But that might just be the spandex squeezing all the blood from my ass back up to my brain.
Which brings me to my next point.
2. All-over Aches
After a long day of writing, you know what I like to do?
Nothing.
Unfortunately, if I do that, I end up paying for it in a litany of shitty ass problems. One biggie is that when you stop working out (or at least stretching daily) in the midst of a sedentary life, everything gets tight. Except what you’d like to.
Even if you don’t gain weight, it’s like the worst tone swap in the world. The ass goes flaccid while you develop TMJ. Your shoulder gets a contracture while your inner thighs conspire on pyromaniacal plans. We’ve got the whole day to ourselves here in the land of the free-lancer. Break every so many minutes. Once the blood’s bopping around my body better, my work suddenly looks a lot less like the mashed potato blob from Close Encounters.
3. Eff the rest of the world!
Oh, no. It’s beginning.
The rituals that mean having to go out into the real world. Why would I put on jeans or makeup when I’ve got zero intention of leaving home today? I don’t need to see anyone. That’s a time waster. I could instead be slaving over a hot desktop and obsessing over my work until it reads like a Speak & Spell. And you want a fashion show from me? I can’t vouch for guys, but the life of a vain ass ho ain’t easy. Too much maintenance. But I have struck the happy medium that I call “If There Is A Fire”.
I at least make sure that if a fire alarm should sound, I’m kempt enough that I don’t emerge from my building looking like someone who might have pulled it herself – between building an acid bomb to mail to Bjork.
Meeting social conventions halfway is a reminder we’re still human. Sorta.
4. Forgetting other people exist
So, the first signs of nuttiness have presented.
Things like refusal to wear normal clothes, brush your hair, or look in a mirror are soon matched by forgetting how to interact with other human beings altogether. But is it really necessary? When you could be working? Face to face interaction might seem like a time waster if productivity’s been low. But if the quantity and quality of work alike are suffering anyway – mayhaps it’s time to get out of the house, man.
If nothing else, common interactions with other people remind us we’re more than mere brain balloons breezing through a world of solipsism. And sometimes they unintentionally ignite our innovation. So tie your creativity block to the tracks as you grab coffee with a friend, and then watch your conversation train murder it where it lays thrashing and screaming.
Which reminds me:
5. Forgetting other people’s work exists
If you don’t have anyone at hand to use for your own selfish, indirect financial gain:
Try first to remember other people exist. Then remember other artists exist. Finally, remember how some of them even made you laugh or delighted or horrified enough at one point in your life to say, “I’d like to make money finessing clay into figurines” or “writing toilet humor” or “directing low budget horror films no one will ever watch.”
When the two by four of apathy clonks us in the cranium, we can always pause and inject some levity. As a rule, I avoid returning to work with fresh eyes until those eyes have seen something that made me say, “I hate myself for not thinking of that first.”
6. Loss of identity
But we don’t have to hate ourselves for not thinking of it first.
Sometimes I try walking a mile in their shoes. Tuning into the frequency of other artists helps me remember my own errant tone that’s wandered off into the procrasturbation forest. There’s different moods for different pieces, but try to avoid going the “Secret Window” route and developing twelves alter-egos (more on that in a bit)
Also obviously, don’t copycat – plagiarism is tantamount to uttering the title of Harry Potter’s arch-nemesis. Although, if you needed reminding of that, then you’d do best to take a permanent break from this field.
7. Trouble expressing yourself?
A little trouble expressing ourselves, have we – got? Or… “Do we”?
Wait. What’s the right grammatickle…? Oh no. Now I’ve done it. I’ve caught the cerebral Trojan horse – the brain’s blue screen of death. I’ve literally thought the think out of my own process. The only solution right now is: ANYTHING ELSE. Press the big red alarm button, pause everything, and do anything from that list of stuff above: have a chat, take a jog, walk your dog, walk somebody else’s dog… like just sneak up behind them and grab the leash out of their hand and run off screaming “catch me if you can!”
Or ya know, just watch or read something brilliant.
Anything’s better to brain-debug than using the same mindcycle that got you here.
8. Loss of sex drive
Is every sexual advance starting to look like Peter Dangle-wagger?
I don’t have an answer for this problem. I’d say it was chick specific and that even the Count of Monte Cristo would’ve emerged ready for phallic battle, upon surviving to the other side of his prison escape. But it appears all’s frigid in love and solitude.
For instance, a Psych Today article raised a valid point: after rats are in isolation a while, they give exactly zero point zero shits about taking mates. No matter how sexy the vixen vermin are, they’re just vexed or apathetic altogether. So, I guess that whole bullshit about “connecting before sexing” holds at least a little bit true. It’s just that the connection doesn’t always have to be the person on the other end of your plug. Or circuit. Or cone, if you’re Dan Aykroyd’s alien daughter.
If I have to ask “these don’t count as toys?” as the guy pulls out (because I’ve pulled out my bloody wire hanger and chain saw), I take a time out. I usually use this copulatory pause to reflect on my spiritual path. Other times, it’s to decide if I have enough room in my closet for his body next to the other two and half.
So think of Platonically speaking with people – if not for your craft – as a sex investment to avoid morphing into Patrick Bateman halfway through.
9. Losing touch with reality
Part of the fun of being creative is delving into alter-realities.
If you’re a bipolar bear like I am, you can either indulge your congenital curmudgeon or take advantage of the days where the whole world feels like it’s smiling with you. Ironically, I do my more serious work when I’m in an element of levity. If I’m alright, reality’s not so hard to handle. The funnier stuff tends to happen if I’m depressed, because my way of dealing with darkness is to slit its wrists, grab a gold pan, and wait for any redeeming moments of comic relief to reveal themselves.
If you’re flying solo in your domicile, though, getting stuck on any one thing for too long’s no good. Where intention and attention goes equals reality. ‘specially if no one else’s around. So you can only joke about hooker-murder or uni-bombing for so long before it’s time to break for a few think-pieces.
For sanity’s sake.
10. Self-analysis
From your jogging style to your porking form, whatever muscle groups we most are tough to turn off. The brain’s no different. So when the work ends, and that whole world above your neck’s still spinning… it can cause some internal noggin throbbing. Some people call this anxiety. If it spirals on too long in solitude, the Joker’s “gravitational push” might land you in the old tub full o’ your own blood. This sucks for two reasons:
1. I hear it hurts more than they let on and takes a really long time. Boring.
2. There’s still more episodes of Louie to watch – and after that you can watch the season over again. Boom. Two reasons to try this thing instead:
First, figure out – when do get most nervous? Do you begin drowning in the panic about life’s impermanence at night or morning? Do you consider deleting everything you’ve ever written and putting your laptop under the wheel of your car sometime around lunch? Maybe don’t do so much thinking right then. Since most of mine happen at sundown, I try to get my creative lit shit done beforehand. After that, the kitchen stops taking orders. I cease cooking new thoughts and start feeding on existing ones of others – content that’s fascinating or funny, but not too heavy. Why? ’cause there’ll be enough of that when I emerge tomorrow from my unconscious dream world to the waking one I’ve woven with words.
In sum:
Working from home might be dreamy – but it’s no holiday in Hawaii.
From voluntary solitary confinement, we’re not seeing any new world parts or perspectives, are we? It’s not easy to crack through my own irrational fears about leaving my hometown (“What if I get switched to a window seat, and have to get up for the toilet, and the person next to me is mean about me getting up, and I accidentally pee on him, so he pulls out a box-cutter, and the plane goes down, and we all land on ‘Lost’ island… where there’s no coffee or Amy’s soup?”)
But when I do move past that, it’s a channel changer for my grey matter.
Occasionally I even return from holiday with my head in slight saner place.