Starting vs. Joining (CityStudio #11)

During the summer of 1998, just after finishing up my year of art school foundations courses at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I began to rethink my decision that a major in illustration was the best route to take. Part of this shift in thought may have come from the fact that I wasn't publishing comic books in my spare time, or transcribing in picture form the frivolities of pop culture instead of writing prose about (topics no less than) overconsumption, but mostly I realized it came from my fear of being self-employed.

I come from a family of teachers, of military servicemen, and of doctors and nurses. Each has joined a school, a branch of the armed forces, or a medical practice. Not one seems to have started or changed such an establishment. Entrepreneurialism, albeit an American ideal, seems to not be in my blood. Some research shows that this trait, at least in part, can be genetic. The cited study, performed by the Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology at Kings College in London, states how "37 percent to 48 percent of the tendency to be an entrepreneur is genetic." This is interesting, but I want to know more about the other 63 to 52 percent. 

In a way, I have spent a good part of my life thinking of the science of genetics as a scapegoat or a means by which to occasionally subvert challenges in favor of familiarity and comfort. It is time I begin to think of opportunity and of life in terms of the percentages that do not refer to genetic predisposition.

Last week I spoke of my idea of "establishing a business that creates products with meaning, in a healthy and meaningful way". This idea has already stuck. I do not plan on letting it leave my consciousness. However, I am curious about this threshold that I have not yet fully crossed. Indeed, I have tiptoed into this land of starting over joining, but never with both feet. I have created art and exhibited it (more than once). I have been a part-time freelance designer and photographer. I have picked up my life and moved 3,000 miles (4,828 kilometres) here to graduate school in Vancouver to, in some ways, begin anew…

I feel it is time for part and parcel; time for both feet. The why not has everything to do with fear of the first time and with failure. Yet, I know well how I learn best from making mistakes and revisiting failures. My experiences with CityStudio have afforded me the confidence to seriously consider using both feet to soon take some leaps I have not yet taken. After all, the world needs us to take risks now…to help revert the risks we have burdening it with for generations.