Capitalism Killed My Crafts

Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?

Growing up, I was into many hobbies, only I didn’t see them as that, and I just considered them things to do. As far as I’ve known, since even before kindergarten, I drew cartoons. I started playing the piano when I was about 7, which then evolved into me to start playing the cello when I was 11 and the guitar when I was 25. When I learned how to write, I was highly involved in creative writing, poems and writing raps, and then when I got my first gaming console, an Atari 7800, at around 11 years old, I made it my point to get good at games. I did all of these at the same time, all the time, while going to school, and I never had problems incorporating them into my time. Other things I’ve briefly dabbled in at some point were street and astrophotography.

But as I approached my senior year in high school, little sayings circled among us that “real life” happens after graduation as we start getting jobs and becoming who we were born to be. That really worried me because I didn’t want to stop being who I was. So one day, I said to myself I was never going to allow real life to make me stop doing my hobbies. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a country that fosters creativity, and instead, it’s a direct enemy of it and crushes it under the wheels of of self-sufficiency so you don’t starve to death while you live under the roof of a home that doesn’t belong to you.

I don’t know why or how I started drawing, but it happened when I was  very young, even before I started school. They weren’t just regular chicken scratch, scribble drawings that most kids were doing. These were “my teachers collected our art after class and the teacher would stop, stare at my picture and give me that ‘what the actual fuck is a 4 year old drawing this well'” look. I remember when I was in elementary school, one of my drawings was featured on the local news. It was a picture of Goofy under a blazing sun sweating – it was one of those cheesy local news submissions they do for kids. I missed my little cameo, but one of my teachers at the time saw the broadcast and called me out and said, “I saw your drawing on the news!” Another time, I reached city level in an art competition. I never understood why people found drawing so difficult. When people asked how I could draw so well, I would tell them I just picture something in my head and mimic it on paper. As I got in my teens, my drawing evolved from pencil, charcoals and paper to airbrushing graffiti on clothes.

But as an adult thinking back, why was I drawing so much and so well and I realized they weren’t pictures of talent, they were pictures of trauma. What I realize now, is that I was drawing to escape the domestic violence that was going on at home. At that time, my Mom and step-dad were together and he would get drunk and start fights which often led to the neighbors calling the cops. I always wanted to scream “shut the fuck up” but I was too scared, so I had this wild imagination of just random things and would draw to escape the situation. I suppose the trauma of going through domestic violence as a kid was both a blessing and a curse because once my Mom left my step-dad, I slowly stopped drawing and by the time I was an older teenager, I had stopped drawing and airbrushing entirely.

I started playing the piano at 7 years old because my grandmother and great-grandmother were both violinists, and my grandmother had an upright piano in her house. My great grandmother was a music teacher, also had a piano in her house, and was the organist for Ella Fitzgerald in her early years (yes, I’m originally from Newport News, Virginia, the hometown of Ella). When I was about 9 years old, I discovered my deceased great-grandmother’s record collection of classical music and I would put them on the record player and listen to them all day, everyday. I didn’t know what instrument I wanted to play, but I knew I wanted to play in the middle school Orchestra. I eventually settled on the violin, but when I took my first class at school and the teacher, Ms. Brown asked what instruments everyone wanted to play, half of our 7-person class said they wanted to play violin. She said, “Everyone can’t play violin!”, so I was put on cello and that’s where I stayed for the rest of my life. My glass half-full way looking at it was, “Well, at least I get to sit down all the time.” My Mom eventually bought me my own cello when I was 15 years old. I am now 47 and still have the same cello, but it mostly sits in its case these days because I stopped playing after I graduated high school in 1995. I did pick it back up a bit when I was 25 to play in my college Cosumnes River College Orchestra in California, also briefly picked up the guitar, then again at Hampton University when I transferred there later in about 2005, but I didn’t pick it back up again after that. It sat in a closet. I did pick it back up again last year to play in the Borough of Manhattan Community College Orchestra, but the stress of playing and studying computer science nuked that attempt and I haven’t played since last fall and dropped the class.

There’s nothing special for me to say about writing. I’ve always done it in some form or another. But as far as creative writing, I stopped doing that early on, probably in about middle school. I only picked it back up when the internet became a thing for me around the early 2000s when I created my website and started blogging. You only need to look at my archives to see how often I write as this website is the best log of how often I do it and any papers and essays I’ve written are also here. One thing I wish I still had though was the rap I wrote in middle school. It was a D.A.R.E. rap contest and my group won first place.

My biggest hobby would probably be gaming though. I first started gaming when I was about 7 years old when my elementary school got an Atari 2800 for us to play in the gym. Later, my Mom got me my own console when I was about 12 years old, an Atari 7800. Then when other consoles came out, she got me an Nintendo 64, a Sega Genesis, a Sega Saturn, and a Sega Dreamcast. With the exception of the Nintendo, which was stolen from me by a “friend” and the Sega Dreamcast, that I returned to the store because it hurt my eyes, I still have all my old consoles. Later I got a PS2, which I eventually sold, and a PS3, PS4 and the last console I bought was a Nintendo Switch. I’m not buying anymore consoles bro, but back when I first started gaming, I made it my point to master games like Mario Bros, Sonic, and Earthworm Jim. Then later on God of War. However, I actually stopped being a console player in 2005 when I started playing World of Warcraft and that became an obsession, little did I know, I would never come back from. I played it religiously, hard-core raiding every week and playing everyday for several years. In 2013, I switched to playing Final Fantasy XIV like a new addict, mostly doing PvP. So, after about 2018, World of Warcraft started to get weak and I ever so slowly didn’t play much anymore and dedicated most of my time to Final Fantasy XIV trolling thr Wolves Den arenas with my friend. Unfortunately after a few years, that also began to dwindle as Square Enix changed the game to a shell of its former self and I went back to playing Diablo and World of Warcraft, mostly Vanilla, on Nostalrius private server and then on Elysium when Nost got nuked from pressure by Blizzard. Ever since then I’ve kind of fallen from games as much as I used to play, just because of life. Other games I’ve briefly played are Guild Wars 2, Wildstar, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Black Desert, Overwatch, and some others. But the game of choice I play mostly these days is Path of Exile, but I’ve even fallen from that lately as games just don’t hold my attention much anymore. You’ve played one genre, then you’ve played them all. I guess I’m just waiting on something to renew my interest while not having real life screw up my focus.

So, all that said, having to keep a job has killed much of my interests, but I’m trying to get back into them again slowly but surely and put work on the backburner. I just turned 47 and I want to live in reverse by putting my hobbies first and work as secondary, so that’s why I’m learning programming to work independently, while focusing on my hobbies again, but its been hard because I also need an income obviously.  But hopefully I can figure out a way to sort it out, so I never have to work in corporate America again because it killed my crafts and I am bitter about it.