Irritating

So, I'm looking for a job, just like everyone else, and I don't have a lot to do while I'm waiting for people to ignore my emails so here I am.....blogging for no one to read. I just moved to Vancouver, Washington not Canada. I think that Canada is the next step though. I want to go just to see. It doesn't take a million dollars to travel if you do it right. It takes more money just to live somewhere. However, get ready for a lot of people asking you stupid questions. People are so scared. They live like little paranoid things, jumping at every shadow, worried that someone is going to take their money, their house, their whatever and they're not bothering to live anymore. Jobs are scarce because businesses see that they can't afford to take a risk. A job can have a laundry list of requirements, bureaucratic hoops so complicated that you need a technical translator just to figure out what the job is and when you look at the pay it's generally minimum wage. Employers are hiring more family members, whether qualified or not, reviving a mafia mentality that used to be reserved for movies and Grand Theft Auto games. You pull the people who share your blood closer because that's just what you do with family. In such a tenuous world it's easy to feel hopeless with people asking so much and exploding when you get the slightest thing wrong. Just to get in an apartment we had to pay a fifteen hundred dollar deposit. A lot of places treated us like we were fugitives. Luckily, we had saved up money. Good ol' America, where if you throw enough cash at it there's a chance it can work. Even creativity is becoming more bland and restrained. Commercial art; isn't that a contradiction? Don't get me wrong, I don't like for people to manufacture an "edgy" aesthetic. However, if something isn't genuine, when it comes to art, it's painfully obvious. I went to an art gallery the other day to show a woman some of my photos and she had another artist drop by. This woman used to do ceramic pottery but she decided to quit and become a pastry chef. She told me to just get a job, any job, then work on finding the perfect job. In this conversation came up the suggestion that people who want to see art would rather find an artist in a gallery than online, which I think is unfortunately false. In a world of instant gratification, where people point and click and have the ability to get anything they want. A world of digital cameras that fool people into believing they're photographers and no end to the line of people who do arts and crafts rather than creating....what's the point of trying? We're a people who can't seem to see the value of art until the artist dies anyway. Saying this feels and tastes bitter. I feel stupid just putting this in words. Pretentious. I've spent my entire life working the only job I could get, waiting for the right thing to come along. Actually, that has been a theme in all aspects of my life. Does everyone do that? Does anyone say they want to sell vacation packages? Aren't we all just waiting when we should be looking? I'm tired of not being good enough. Tired of people's top shelf advice being to settle. Tired of worrying about what people think of me even while I have to sit and wonder if this will burn the only bridges I've made here. And really why should I worry, when we can't even tell anymore what's disposable and what will last? I am not by any means saying that if you have a digital camera, do arts and crafts, or sell vacation packages that you are somehow less. I don't know much about being an artist. I know that when I listen to and play music I get goosebumps. I know that when I take pictures I can see things I normally would not. I know that when I run, even when my lungs are weeping, I feel like I can do anything. We are a world of strays and we would rather have something than nothing, even if nothing is a slap in the face every day. I'm not looking for the perfect job. I'm not asking to have things handed to me. I just want a toe hold. I won't settle for the Devil I know.