This weekend, I went to a convention and bought a ton of stuff. This was unusual for me, because I am not normally someone who invests in materialism. Having a lot of stuff is not something that is important to me. Two things changed this year: I now have an obscene amount of disposable income, and I stopped caring about what other people think is important, because they don't care about what I think is important.
Respect is, inherently, a two-way street. When we are talking about things that are inherently subjective, like what kind of food I enjoy eating, or what books I like to read, I will not respect your opinion if you refuse to respect mine. There is absolutely no reason for me to care about what you think if you don't care about what I think. On the flipside, if you respect my opinion, but disagree with me, I will also respect your opinion, even if I disagree with it.
I buy art prints because I want to support artists. I want to support artists because I think art is more important than anything else, but few people share this view. Furthermore, most people don't care what I think, and expect me to conform to whatever vision of importance they subscribe to.
Before, I grudgingly tried to give society the benefit of the doubt. I tried to show respect to other people's admittedly bizarre concept of what is important in a human life, in the hopes that this respect would be reciprocated. It is now clear to me that society at large is dumber than a rock and isn't worth my time, so I'm not even trying to appease it. I simply don't care anymore.
I do not have time for meaningless debates about my life choices. If people don't understand how I spend my money or my time, it's because they don't see the world the way I see it. They don't value the same things I value. This does not automatically make me wrong, it makes me different, and I don't give a shit about stupid ideological bullcrap. I don't care about what they think is important because they don't care about what I think is important. They can sit there all day long, writing stupid comments about how I am wasting my talents, or how I should join a startup, or work for some company they love, or how I'm depriving humanity of some stupid thing I don't care about. I don't care.
I may like art that you think is stupid. I don't care, I like it, and I think it's important. I think every facet of human diversity is a beautiful thing that should be encouraged instead of brutally stamped out in elementary school. I think creativity is what makes us human, and what will ultimately be our last useful skill after robots have taken over everything else. I think we have better things to do then argue about shows for little girls.
I'm going to do everything in my power to support those artists, because other people won't. I will spend my entire life fighting with every fiber of my being for better welfare and support for artists that live in poverty. These artists aren't poor because they're lazy, they're poor because people won't support them. They're poor because society doesn't think they're important.
But I do, and you can be damn sure I'm going to do something about it.
