The Freelance Prison
I’ve been a freelancer for most of my adult life. It hasn’t been a long adult life, but in terms of percentages, 70% sounds about right. There is a great deal of freedom in the freelance lifestyle, but it is a freedom in the confines of a very large prison. My areas of freelance expertise were broad, since (the logic went) the more skills I had, the greater the likelihood I could find a client when necessary—and it was good logic. I was an art director, a production artist, a video editor, a videographer, a photographer, a photo retoucher, an illustrator, a writer, and a teacher. I loved all these media and enjoyed finding ways in which they were similar. I was often encouraged to focus, so I came up with elaborate arguments that convinced me they were all the same thing. The arguments worked and I got enough gigs to keep me from dying. I made good money and I spent all that money and I never died.
But I was still trapped. When one has a multitude of specialties, one has to stay abreast of all the latest developments. Fun, but very time consuming. It was like Facebook, but less annoying. The things I loved were neglected. Neglect hurts things. My true passion is writing (fiction and non-fiction), my love is reading, and my loved ones were feeling quite rejected.
Enter Chris Guillebeau.
The Art of Non-Conformity is an excellent little manifesto/blog that documents Chris Guillebeau's beliefs in adding meaning to one’s life through taking action in an unconventional way. He works to keep from sounding self-helpy and I respect that because it’s nearly impossible to do. His experiences as a traveler, as a charitable worker, and as an entrepreneur had given him a number of critical insights into making our short time on earth a little more meaningful. He is careful to stress that all life has meaning, but quick to add that a “meaningful life” is one that goes beyond the bare sociological definitions of “meaning.” His lifestyle is a pure form of religious humanism: do unto others and love thy neighbor as thyself. Usually, the missing component of “loving thy neighbor” is that one must also love one’s self. If you don’t love yourself enough to give yourself the best, then you won’t give your neighbor the best either. The standard for love of others is the love you have for yourself.
I’ve visited Chris’s blog on and off for several years. At times I was hatefully jealous. At other times, glad for him. Never once, though, did I doubt the value of his work.
Enter Brian Hischier, aka Me
As I finished the eighth draft of a fifteen year novel, I realized that at the age of 37 I had yet to really devote myself to what I love. The multiplicity of freelance skills had created a frenetic life for my brain and for my body, and consequently for my family. In early May of 2013, I reread several of Chris’s free manifestoes and made the decision to begin my own quest.
The things I find value in are generally things experienced best in solitude. Or at least this is what I thought. But the internet is a big, big place. How many billions of people surf this thing? I’d say most of the billions. Of those billions, there must be a big percentage of people who share my values. It was this hunch that lead to me to think I could do this publicly and with reasonable hope for good effect.
As a writer, I self-publish and put a lot of my writing up for free on this site. It’s the freelance life again, but with more focus. I hope to eventually support myself and my family through my writing. Not a bad goal. Lots of us want to do that. I will do my best not to plug my works in an “ew gross” fashion but I will plug my works. There is wrath to face if I don’t. This website may lead people to my books, and that would be fantastic, but frankly I am much more interested in joining people on a quest to like art again.
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