This thread is advice I'd like to give to every middle- or working-class kid out there who's trying to make it in any creative or intellectual field in America today.
Refuse to internalize the unspoken class warfare and hidden opportunity hoarding you will certainly encounter.
Refuse to internalize the unspoken class warfare and hidden opportunity hoarding you will certainly encounter.
If you grew up in a family of modest means, you may not even know the extent to which money enables creative success.
There's the main, obvious one: Rich kids don't have to hustle to survive. Don't need to have day jobs. Don't have the Precariat Fear. Don't have survivor guilt.
There's the main, obvious one: Rich kids don't have to hustle to survive. Don't need to have day jobs. Don't have the Precariat Fear. Don't have survivor guilt.
Simply not needing to worry about where the money's coming from—or even just not needing to worry about what happens to you economically if you fail—is an almost indescribable advantage when doing creative work.
But that's only the start, because if someone simply gave a non-wealthy kid a trust fund, that kid would still have nothing like the advantages of their wealthy competitors.
Wealthy kids go to schools/ have family lives where they have opportunities to get early professional-level training in cultural/intellectual fields, mingle with established creatives (and pick up their social cues), learn the attitudes and gossip that identify one as an insider.
If they're serious, and have supportive parents, there then are tutors, trainers, consultants, even plastic surgeons. There are trips abroad for inspiration. There are vacations with family friends in positions of authority. There are bespoke internships. There are mentors.
If they're even more serious, there are unadvertised positions to be had in universities/cultural institutions; investors and funders for projects (again, often thru family friends); access to the top echelons of the media; networks that only open from the top.
I could go on.
But the point is this: If you have none of this going for you, you absolutely cannot make lack of material success into a basis of judgment for the quality of your work.
That's not being fair to yourself.
But the point is this: If you have none of this going for you, you absolutely cannot make lack of material success into a basis of judgment for the quality of your work.
That's not being fair to yourself.
You also have to adopt different strategies to succeed.
And yes, I learned about a lot of this the hard way.
