10 Lessons Learned In A Decade

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10 Lessons Learned In A Decade

Ten years ago today I graduated from SUNY Geneseo and - two hours later - hopped in a car with my mother to drive 20 hours to Granbury, TX for my first professional theatre gig at Texas Family Musicals.

And with that, I embarked upon the journey that has been my post-college adult life.

To say that a lot has happened in the past decade is an almost criminal understatement: I’ve lived in three states, made a home in NYC, made and lost friends (made far more though!), had people come in and out of my life, found my artistic home, grew as a teacher, writer, actor, singer, pianist, arranger, and overall human being, and oh so much more.

As much as people like to call our high school and college years our “formative” years, I think it’s in the decade after the college experience (or your twenties into the start of the thirties, for those who did not attend college) in which we truly discover who we are, what we want, and where we want to go.

So, in honor of this milestone, I would like to share just 10 of the lessons I’ve learned over this decade.

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Love The Art, Hate The Artist?

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Love The Art, Hate The Artist?

Society - particularly American society - loves to demonize or to “other” art and artists.

We deride people who create:

  • “Oh, you’re an artist? You’re one of those.”

  • “Oh, you’re a writer? I wish I could sit at home all day.”

  • “Oh, you’re an actor? You must love starving.”

These are of course specific examples using common ideas and tropes, but these kinds of reactions are common and probably sound familiar to you.

We tell people who want to go into the arts:

  • “Why would you to throw your life away?”

  • “But you have so much potential!”

  • “But there’s no money in the arts!”

Being a creator is clearly seen as being *less than,* but why? Less than what? Why would we consider becoming an artist or writer or performer or designer a path that is throwing your life away or not using your skills and talents?

Well, Capitalism.

But this type of thinking and behavior not only can be unlearned, but it needs to be unlearned. Art and the products of creation are everywhere, but we’ve been conditioned to have a blind spot for most of it, and what we do see we are told to feel contempt for. Let’s just see how pervasive art is, shall we?

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