August 1, 2004

the sex & cash theory

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More thoughts on “How To Be Creative”:

7. Keep your day job.

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78 Responses to “the sex & cash theory”

  1. hugh macleod says:

    Sexy & Loa­ded! Yay!

  2. Peter says:

    nice article, inte­res­ting thoughts…

  3. karambos says:

    It’s so refreshing to hear someone else tal­king about the exact same situa­tion I find myself in. Noone I know is doing what I do and noone really gets it. Thankyou.

  4. Diana Janicki says:

    Well.…I just did the big ole diva drama queen thang last week… and all I know is it felt fan­tas­tic!
    High payin, crea­tive direc­tor role.…gone.
    Scary brink of nothing­ness ahead…
    The rea­son your theory didnt work for me is that the day job was 10 hours a day and I was so deple­ted I couldn’t
    find a crea­tive bone left in my body for the eve­nings or the wee­kends when i just nee­ded R&R.
    The day job neednt be 50 hours a week right?
    Any­ways LOVE your work and really enjo­yed your theory!
    Diana :-)

  5. hugh macleod says:

    Heh, well diana, rules were made to be bro­ken ;-) Good luck to you!

  6. Matt Haley says:

    A very inte­res­ting theory, and one I can’t say I disa­gree with in prin­ci­ple. When I faced the deci­sion to become a full-time illus­tra­tor, I went whole-hog. I was such an ego­ma­nia­cal jerk that I really thought I could just sit and draw all day (re: have Sex) and peo­ple would throw Cash at me. It took 13 years, but it finally hap­pe­ned. I do wish I’d heard of this theory earlier… — mh

  7. vanselu says:

    Don’t get me wrong, I love the car­toons — and it doesn’t mat­ter one iota that they’re on a biz card. Crea­tive? Sure, wha­te­ver. The con­tent is what makes them worth loo­king at.
    As for sex & cash theory, there’s nothing revo­lu­tio­nary there. Most peo­ple would just call it “hobby & job” ins­tead of “sex & cash”. It’s all about priorities.

  8. hugh macleod says:

    Van­selu, thanks for the input.
    A. I make no claim to be revo­lu­tio­nary. It’s meant to be com­mon sense, based on my own and others’ per­so­nal expe­rience.
    B. It’s not just about “Hobby & Job”. It applies to pro­fes­sio­nal crea­ti­ves and artists as well. I sup­pose what’s inte­res­ting to me is how the pro’s are as affec­ted by it as any amateur.

  9. Chris says:

    I think this is just another per­so­nal theory … so it shouldn‘t be thought of as a “uni­ver­sal truth”.
    It wor­ked for the Wright brothers. Their bycicle com­pany paid the bills for their research (“sex”) but what about Bill Gates?
    He dum­ped the “cash” (stud­ying Har­vard, law­yer) for the “sex”. I hope we all agree he did a wise choice, don‘t we ?
    Some­ti­mes “sex” implies abso­lu­tely no com­pro­mi­ses (“cash”, day jobs wha­te­ver) so make sure you‘re not taking this theory for granted.

  10. Max says:

    I love my job. It gives me cash AND sex. Some­ti­mes the sex even gets me cash. Beat that.

  11. dino r. says:

    “cash & sex” no duh.

  12. hugh macleod says:

    “You will need clothes, food, and a place to live. Do what it takes to get those things first. With the time left over, do wha­te­ver you want.”
    That is NOWHERE NEAR what I’m saying, Cosine.
    Please re-read and get back to me ;-)

  13. reina says:

    i like to be inte­res­ting, i like fuck and dife­rent thing, i like money fast…

  14. reina says:

    I like to be inte­res­ting, i like fuck and dife­rent things, i love games and you touch my body…come in knowme…

  15. Roger says:

    There is a man named Mark Savic­kas. He’s a researcher who stu­dies careers and career deve­lop­ment. As peo­ple go, this guy is like the gold stan­dard for career theo­ries.
    Any­way, he has this lec­ture he goes over in his clas­ses called “Work and Love.” What you’ve desc­ri­bed is the essen­tial mes­sage of the Work and Love lec­ture. You have your Work (cash) and your Love (sex).
    So now you can toss around names like Donald Super, or Mark Savicks and talk somewhat com­for­tably about career and life deve­lop­ment theories.

  16. Hot Sauce says:

    Reminds me of the “Hac­kers and Pain­ters” essay.

  17. mark says:

    I quit my cash job around 1990, and found myself living with a nut­ball sexy car­too­nist cash copyw­ri­ter above a hot mexi­can bakery in Chi­cago. It was worth it.
    opting for the sex side doesn’t mean you still do not find your­self grub­bing for cash. Unless you are sup­por­ted as van gough was with a par­tron or trust fund or wha­te­ver, there is no such thing as choo­sing not to pur­sue cash — its just a mat­ter of how much. and if you’re tal­king about sex with someone other than your­self, having a little cash can really help.

  18. Tom O. says:

    Inte­res­ting refi­ne­ment, and much more rea­lis­tic, than the “Do what you love, the money will follow” theory. I had always put just the mini­mum amount of effort I could get away with in the day job (“Cash” thing) just hard enough so I could devote as much time and energy as pos­si­ble in being an elec­tro­nic musi­cian (“Sex” thing), thin­king that soo­ner or later the music would ‘pay off’ (become the “Cash” thing) and I’d live hap­pily ever after. It never wor­ked out that way (and, I might add, there were times when I com­pro­mi­sed myself in doing the music thing with others that no only did it not pay the bills but it wasn’t all that fun, a dou­ble whammy in that regard), so I gave up the music so I could shore up the bill paying part of my life.
    Now, even though I don’t have as much time as I’d like for the music thing, I get more out of it because (a) the tools have evol­ved so much that I can make really great soun­ding music, and more of it in less time; and (b) I only do it for my enjoy­ment, not out of some mis­pla­ced hope that it will ever pay the bills.
    Your XXX vs $$$ theory (and in fact the entire How To Be Crea­tive series) have hel­ped me rea­lize how lucky I am to be able to do what I’m doing the way that I’m doing it. Thanks for that.
    SUBVERT THE DOMINANT PARADIGM!

  19. Does it really mat­ter if your tool is cool?

    Is “pic­king the right tool for the job” truly the res­pon­si­ble approach? Is wan­ting your tools to be cool really a sign of imma­tu­rity? Can we and *should* we still be pas­sio­nate about Java?

  20. john says:

    i want to be a porn star

  21. Gaping­void

    Go to gaping­void and read How To Be Crea­tive, Sex & Cash Theory, and All Pro­ducts Are Conversations.…

  22. misnomer says:

    This is all very well and good untill you
    “reach the stage of no return”
    Lets say, you follo­wed some of your fan­tas­tic theo­ries and deci­ded to branch out of your nor­mal realm, of say mecha­nic, and spend four years at uni­ver­sity stud­ying graphic design,
    So to sup­port your­self during those 4 years you work bet­ween stud­ying hoping that when you finshed you could con­cen­trate soley on your sexy job.
    Somewhere near the end of your stu­dies, the plane crashed, it became IMPOSSIBLE to keep fixing cars while desig­ning , (dirty hands and clean print outs dont mix)
    I reached the “POINT OF NO RETURN”
    I reached a point where i rea­li­sed that the “cash job didnt weigh up, and that it was cau­sing more harm to my crea­ti­vity than good, it was des­tro­ying my will to live, and i advise young artists not to ignore this fee­ling and quit…before your entire soul is suc­ked clean…
    and you become a for­mer shell of a per­son…
    Most of your exam­ples, had a pretty cool cash jobs, how many had to crawl under a car during pou­ring rain and replace someo­nes star­ter­mo­tor.
    Or clean out filthy toi­lets, etc.
    So i want to point out to artists, that if your smart, and cle­ver you can craft your life to live without out nee­ding a cash job, but you have to be willing to give away many things, (like any self res­pec­ting part­ner)
    This point of no return is i think a healthy excer­cice for all artists, i know one george orwell, most cer­tainly reached the point of no return many times, (see keep the aspis­tria flying)
    or sar­tre (nau­sea) or even step­pen­wolf
    most of the cha­racthers of these novels where doing diddly squat.…and had pro­found rea­li­sa­tions and exis­ten­tial dele­mias…
    so … you decide…

  23. Not me, baby.
    I always drea­med of living life in haiku ins­tead of blank verse, of being per­ma­nently cons­trai­ned, of per­fec­ting the looks of exas­pe­ra­tion that come from end­less days of middle mana­ge­ment mee­tings. I wan­ted to live a life of quiet des­pe­ra­tion, a cor­po­rate shill, a vacuous empty shell filled with false patrio­tism for a sou­lless, face­less cor­po­ra­tion.
    This isn’t just iro­nic lip ser­vice.
    I wan­ted a tan sedan with the radio per­ma­nently tuned to the local lite rock/adult con­tem­po­rary radio sta­tion, a three bedroom semi-detached in Mil­ton Key­nes with a small con­ser­va­tory out back. I wan­ted a nag­ging wife, worries about whether I could afford my kids’ bra­ces and a knick-knack shelf full of Hum­mels.
    I wan­ted to be bald and pudgy, have a wry, resig­ned cyni­cism and the sur­vi­val ins­tincts of a coc­kroach.
    I wan­ted a liquor cabi­net full of middle-shelf whis­key, a han­di­cap of 20 and a nor­mal life. A nor­mal life.
    I’ve stri­ved for medioc­rity. I have failed.

  24. well says:

    Well, Nathan Dorn­brook, that was really a great post. Not at all mediocre. Wow.

  25. SXV says:

    Chin­gon

    the sex & cash theory

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  27. The Sex & Cash Theory

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  28. fakeGeek says:

    Crea­tive and different.…

    I really like this guy car­toons and all that. He has even writ­ten some great artic­les on creativity,…