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Show notes
Money is a rich source of drama because it can stand in for so many things: power, authority, comfort, companionship, nourishment, pleasure, security and much more.
We talk about the drama-relief cycle, the myth of the starving artist and how getting better with money doesn’t make you a boring, mean normie!
Martha quotes Douglas Coupland’s book “Generation X: Tales for an accelerated culture”. In the episode Martha mis-remembers the line as “Shopping is not creative” and as marginalia, it is in fact a chapter heading: “Shopping is not creating”.
We refer back a few times to our episode on all-or-nothing thinking.
Our tips:
If you want to be a creative, create! Don’t just try to live a glamorous “creative person’s” lifestyle by being eccentric and bad with money. It’s self-destructive and unfulfilling.
Making bad art is better for you than making bad dramatic decisions and it gets less scary with practice.
Don’t romanticise trouble. Trouble is mostly dull, exhausting and frustrating.
Find creative role modes who are organised and on top of their finances. More professional creatives are good with money than you would think.
Understand that you can experience joy without having to be miserable and stressed most of the time first. Show yourself some self-compassion and allow yourself joy on top of a baseline of doing ok. Being on top of your finances won’t kill the good times, it just makes them more affordable.
If you are used to living a life full of drama you may find that a more peaceful existence is disconcerting and you become on edge waiting for something to go wrong. Breathe through it, you can learn to trust it, and yourself, in time.
If you have a drama-filled past and you realise you were pretty difficult to be around because of it, (and probably owe a bunch of people a bunch of drinks!) don’t beat yourself up. You can’t change the past, you can only do better from now on.
