What’s your association with autonomy? My thoughts always go back to my first morning after moving to Frankfurt a.M. I was 19, moved there from a small village on the country side and had just registered at the city council. Walking in the morning at Eiserner Steg towards the city center, I felt like the whole world was mine! It was an enormously outburst of freedom, independence and love.
Does this sound extravagant and braking-loose-from-social-obligations? Oh yes, that was exactly how it felt. And that is how every artist should feel. Social interdependence with others and with society will always be there, of course. You want others to love and to by your art. Though you can’t be creative with this in mind. You have to create because you have to create.
This is hard to combine with financial autonomy. The cash flow of artists is very erratic, with many ups and downs. Many artists can’t manage that, and feel much better at a 9-5 job to secure financial independence, which than helps them to be as creative as possible in the spare time.
Autonomy also means, that you take responsibility for the artist in yourself, that you start nurturing your inner artist. What ever other people might say, it’s your responsibility to stay creative, to stay restless and active. It doesn’t matter how successful you will be, the artist inside always wants more. More means to stay creative, to do something new, to leave your comfort zone, every time again.
Sports and other physical activity helps in being active on a creative and spiritual level too. It took me quite long to realize that. Physical activity brings me in a good mood, especially in the morning, it makes me feel mentally stronger and more flexible too.
Nurturing the artist inside and exercise can both help to move from stagnation to inspiration. You can leave self-pity behind and gain self respect. That is something we can only learn by doing. And than we suddenly see the joy of creating again 🙂