Paralysed by too many artistic interests

How does a struggling artist… well, stop struggling? As a creative person whose interests skip giddily from one end of the spectrum to the next, how am I to ever “settle down”? I want to try EVERYTHING. I want to do everything, make everything. I am so overwhelmed by options and ideas that I rarely even create anymore. I walk into my studio and nearly go into a panic at all the projects left unfinished or even unstarted, all the techniques I want to try, all the avenues of creative learning I want to pursue. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to pick something and start, let alone follow through on multiple things.

I think this is a common problem among artists, as we tend to love learning, exploring, and playing. But I suspect that this paralysis I experience is somewhat particular to my own peculiar quirks. I mean, surely I’m not alone in this, but it seems to me that lots of artists who have difficulty settling on just one artistic pursuit can at least find the wherewithal to try things or start things, even if they struggle with finishing them or sticking to one field.

I suspect there are a variety of reasons I experience this inability to start. Firstly, I’m pretty solidly brainwashed by our commercially-driven society to believe that a person’s worth is defined by their income. God, it sounds horrible when I say it like that, and I don’t think I particularly judge others that way – but I’m incredibly down on myself for not making money. For not “being a productive member of society.” I have a hard time trying new things artistically because I’m constantly assessing the saleability of the potential end result. It’s hard to play and experiment when you’re bogged down worrying about the cost of the materials.

Then there’s the Asperger’s stuff. For starters, there’s the fact that one of my stronger Aspie traits is difficulty prioritizing. How do I just pick an interest and dig in when I find the phrase “just pick something” so scary? (And, in fact, pretty nonsensical – to me there is no “just” about picking something.) I’m also the sort of person that tends to get trapped between fear of success and fear of failure. While this is by no means a problem exclusive to those on the autistic spectrum, I believe this is rooted in an Aspie way of thinking in my case. It’s a problem-solving issue; I’m scared to try things because I’ll be faced answering the question “What next?” It’s worth noting that my fear of failure is worse than my fear of success due to my fairly screwed up relationship with money. I can’t shake the feeling that if I wreck a piece I’ve wasted the materials, and to my Damn-Yankee mind wasting anything is a mortal sin.

All this comes back to something I’ve been thinking about more and more lately, which is that I should work on creating some sort of routine or ritual that incorporates journalling and or affirmations. I need to work on retraining my brain in healthier directions, and although I tend to get my mental hackles up at seemingly new-agey notions like affirmations, I think I need to try and push past that impulse. After all, the reason I feel this way is year of thinking things like “Trying new things is scary” and “What can’t I make money? I’m such a loser!” These are affirmations too, just destructive ones.

Having worked through a lot of my feelings and theories on the subject, my next step is to go sit in my studio for a while. I’d like to see if I can play a bit, but for now I just want to work on being comfortable in there. One step at a time.