Today let's talk about the hoax of the 'creative' person. The one who takes up a job because he is not reaching anywhere with his music or acting or film-making career. Can't show up on time, does shoddy work, doesn't have the guts to clean up his own mess when things go wrong at work - because apparently all that professional courtesy and smidgeon of character is reserved for 'the art' - except that the art is also left bereft of it. Why? Because as Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act but a habit."
The dishonesty in attitude, the non-committal stance that constantly faces rejection until they are told to leave - all of that gets channeled into vitriolic fervor to badmouth people, to shirk responsibility, to refuse to accept that time after time, they came up lacking.
And then that dishonesty seeps into the core. And before they know it, they become jaded with unexpressed potential because they didn't have the grit, discipline, and decency to honor it well.
Creativity is a label. Like all labels, it limits and defines.
And if the 'side jobs' you take up to supplement your main job is not met with basic professional courtesy (think missed deadlines, languid communication, empty gossip, commitments that mean nothing), you have lost the heart that made you creative in the first place.
The label that read 'Creative' before reads 'Has-been' now.
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