When I told my brother I
was training to be a financial advisor, his reply was blunt: “Yo,
‘teng, you’re gonna lose all your friends.”
So
it was under the black cloud of my brother’s fearless forecast that I bit the bullet and began the year 2014 by writing to friends and family announcing my new and rather unusual incarnation...in order to pave the way for an idea I wanted to pitch to them: The Art Fund.
As in, a fund they set aside specifically for the purpose of creating--of making beautiful (and maybe not-so-beautiful) things--in peace, with the blissful knowledge that all their daily survival needs--food, rent, etc.--have already been taken care of.
The need for such a fund seems obvious, yes, especially if you desire a sustainable creative life. But in reality--meaning, in practice--it's actually not that obvious.
Otherwise, I--and many other people I know in creative fields--would not have subconsciously perpetuated that long-standing cliché of the financially-impaired artist.
In other words, if the idea of having my own Art Fund were that crystal clear to me, if my brain were naturally wired to think that way, I wouldn't have gone into major debt for my creative projects.
When we talk of creative freedom, it's often in relation to censorship--that is, to an external agency blocking the dissemination of our work, silencing us, keeping us from freely expressing ourselves. But what I've come to realize is that the biggest threats to our creativity are within us, not without. One of them is our stubborn insistence on remaining--how do I put this?--dumb about money.
Unfortunately, many of us still harbor the notion that we are somehow purer, our art more authentic and untarnished, when we keep ourselves ignorant about the currency with which the physical world, of which we are a part, operates. But there is no bliss in that kind of ignorance.
The truth is that there can be no real and sustainable creative freedom unless we achieve financial freedom. Artists can only keep producing astig work if they’re free from constantly
thinking of when their next rent money will arrive. (Lalo na pag may anak—your
art, even your own survival needs, take a backseat to the little ones’ needs.)
I also realized that the reason I wasn’t very smart about money then is that no one in
the financial world (accountants, bankers, stock brokers, insurance agents), it
seemed, knew how to talk to someone like me about money in a way that took my
concerns into consideration. No one seemed to understand that I wasn’t really
that interested in saving or investing so that I could buy a car or a house or
to send my kids to school (because, um, I don’t have kids).
I
do want to buy a (beach) house and to send my kids to school (when I am blessed
with them already). But the truth is, if I was to save and invest, it was so
that I could:
1) Not have to take a job or stay in one I didn’t like
2) Afford to take months off from “earning a living” and focus on a book or screenplay that I was writing
3) Afford to have my own space, where I could create in peace
4) Afford to go to a nice beach or travel to a new place to renew my spirit
5) Afford to take my loved ones along to that nice beach and new place to renew their spirit
6) Afford to play patroness of the arts to a friend or family member whose soul has become parched because he/she hasn’t been doing his/her art, to say to him/her, “Enough wishing, whining and worrying. Quit your job/leave your parents’ house/take a break from being breadwinner. Instead, work on that book/painting/play/film/new fashion line/dream boutique hotel/whatever. I got your back…for six months to a year.”
1) Not have to take a job or stay in one I didn’t like
2) Afford to take months off from “earning a living” and focus on a book or screenplay that I was writing
3) Afford to have my own space, where I could create in peace
4) Afford to go to a nice beach or travel to a new place to renew my spirit
5) Afford to take my loved ones along to that nice beach and new place to renew their spirit
6) Afford to play patroness of the arts to a friend or family member whose soul has become parched because he/she hasn’t been doing his/her art, to say to him/her, “Enough wishing, whining and worrying. Quit your job/leave your parents’ house/take a break from being breadwinner. Instead, work on that book/painting/play/film/new fashion line/dream boutique hotel/whatever. I got your back…for six months to a year.”
But the money folks weren’t talking to me about all that. So I wasn’t really
motivated to learn early on to save, invest or get insurance (well, I let mine
lapse when I went freelance).
It seemed logical, then, that the thing to do was to get some money smarts myself and to be my own financial advisor. When I learned enough, I figured, I would be a financial advisor for people like me. So that younger creatives, who include my own siblings, cousins and friends, could get it
right soonest...and be rid of that oh-so-annoying money-related, dualistic and ultimately self-sabotaging artist cliché of being either “starving” (creative na walang pera) or a
“sell-out” (creative na may pera).
So that artists and art in this country can
truly thrive, as they do in First World countries.
After a year of "training" and of trying to sell the idea of the Art Fund, I am happy to report that I did not lose any friends. At least, not to my knowledge. I firmly and truly believe that many of them honestly changed phone numbers and simply lost mine in the confusion...
The lovely surprise was that I found a warm, comfortable home in what was once a truly alien world to me--the "grown-up" world of personal financial management. Sure, I was the weird one, at first. The one who seemed to have wandered into the wrong building. The one whose standard response to everything they said was a look of confusion and a highly articulate "Huh?"
But, my golly, were those people--my mentors, my colleagues, my fellow trainees--endowed with uncommon patience. Not only did they take me in, they seriously took me on, rolling up their sleeves and gritting their teeth as they rewired my brain so that it could receive new and vital information that would help further my cause, my creativity, my goddamn Art Fund. They did not give up on me--a feat and a kindness I laud to this day as I know very well what a tough crowd my kind can be.
So that when it came time for me to write again, to leave that world and to return to mine, I left knowing that that whole invaluable experience afforded me a real fighting chance, as that wise pointy-eared alien with the killer brows put it, to "live long and prosper."
After a year of "training" and of trying to sell the idea of the Art Fund, I am happy to report that I did not lose any friends. At least, not to my knowledge. I firmly and truly believe that many of them honestly changed phone numbers and simply lost mine in the confusion...
The lovely surprise was that I found a warm, comfortable home in what was once a truly alien world to me--the "grown-up" world of personal financial management. Sure, I was the weird one, at first. The one who seemed to have wandered into the wrong building. The one whose standard response to everything they said was a look of confusion and a highly articulate "Huh?"
But, my golly, were those people--my mentors, my colleagues, my fellow trainees--endowed with uncommon patience. Not only did they take me in, they seriously took me on, rolling up their sleeves and gritting their teeth as they rewired my brain so that it could receive new and vital information that would help further my cause, my creativity, my goddamn Art Fund. They did not give up on me--a feat and a kindness I laud to this day as I know very well what a tough crowd my kind can be.
So that when it came time for me to write again, to leave that world and to return to mine, I left knowing that that whole invaluable experience afforded me a real fighting chance, as that wise pointy-eared alien with the killer brows put it, to "live long and prosper."
