When Will I Be Enough?

A Treatise Against Paying Artists a Living Wage Response by CAZIR

In my college sophomore fall, I had several emotional breakdowns, one of the most memorable
of which was in the office hours of my South African history class.

“I hate this fucking class.” I probably thought and tried hard not to tell my professor. I would cry
into the arms of this white woman, whose class I’d later drop because I couldn’t stand the liberal
racism that was ever present, but also because Introduction to Computer Systems was kicking
my ass. Terribly.

I didn’t really get C or assembly. The material seemed too low level (in this context, too close to
the physical parts) to matter to someone “destined” to become a software engineer and work at
a much higher level. But, it wasn’t the material that had evoked this reaction. To be honest, while
I blinked away my tears I saw my brother, mother, and grandmother who all in my mind
depended on me for their survival. Not just in my mind, but out of their own mouths or those of
family members, or by the way my brother held my hand and stared at me expectantly.

If I can’t pass this class, get this degree, and get paid, I will have failed them. It’s a weight that
had burdened me since twelve years old, caring for my newborn brother until late in the night.
That’s what STEM became for me. Gone were the days of teaching myself Java in the hopes of
building Minecraft mods until late at night. Now, I focused on LeetCode, internships, and return
offers. Much of the time, I compared myself to my often white and Asian peers. All of the time, I
felt like I was failing. It hurt to feel lackluster at something that I loved.

Yet, an entirely different side of me bloomed that first semester when college actually felt like
college, and COVID incorrectly, socially, became a common cold. I leaned into my love for
poetry and took to every stage available to me. Every one, and pretty soon I began to dream of
poetry collections, tours, and much more. Maybe this could be who I am, I thought, searching.
And yet, like fingers lacing around my neck, I felt obligation tightening its hold as a reminder that
I had bigger fish to fry. I was wasting my time on these student organizations and communities.
Who cares about verses if I don’t have insurance? Who cares about stages if the home is
displaced? I couldn’t reconcile these two paths. They’ve always seemed like separate roads
rather than sides of the same coin: I need to change, to get real.

A year and change after that conversation, I told my mom I wanted to be a poet during one of
our final conversations. All she asked was “How would you make money?”

I didn’t have a straight answer, but I was more hurt that she asked that at all. I told the doctors
about my aspirations in technology and they laughed in joy, assuring my mother about all the
money that I was destined to make. I don’t know if she was at all assured as she laid in her
hospital bed. What I mean is I don’t remember how her face looked in that conversation. But, I
do remember telling the doctors I was interested in working in cloud technologies.

Who should afford to make art? God knows.

There’s a chaplain I met in college, and we had many conversations about my career and
future. When I told him I struggled with that class, he said something like, “You’re a great artist!
Why not drop computer science and focus on something you truly love like literary arts or major
only in Africana studies?”

At that moment, yes, that moment, I felt that tightness around my neck, but quietly, I heard my
heart whispering. I didn’t know at the time that I was yearning. I didn’t only feel fear when I
thought of computers. I still felt that love for the way the keys clacked under my fingertips as I
taught myself a new technology that blew my mind. Behind my eyes, a 12-year-old kid
obsessed with what their computer could do if he poked around enough, remained. They cried
for me to keep going.

I guess it wasn’t always about the money. At least, it wasn’t only about the money, whether I
realized it or not.

Of course, money is an amazing motivator.

When my brother was born, I took a hard look at my family situation. I saw all these slight cracks
that with time would become canyons. I resolved that the solution to what I only saw as
impending catastrophe was to get into a top university with a full ride: a ticket to stability and a
high-paying job. I figured I could fund whatever adult me knew about that I didn’t, so I fell down
a path that I’d come to hate in the hopes of saving everyone and thereby myself.

Here I am, eleven years later with my free technical degree in hand and closer to that big adult
job than I’ve ever been, but all I can think about is Cazir.

That part of me that never wanted to work night shifts to support myself and family.
That part of me with dozens of albums, clothes, and avenues of art swirling in my mind daily.
That part of me that healed the rest during college because I didn’t let my pursuit of money
consume my existence.

Here I am, fighting with disability law, insurance bureaucracy, a crumbling home, and pervasive
familial trauma. All of which costs.

It costs my time.

It costs my energy.
It costs my money.

I often feel like Cazir is looking at me from some part of my mind asking again and again: when
will I be able to afford the art that I want to make?

In other words, when will I, or we, stop drowning?
When will it be enough?
When will I be enough?

I think many of us are asking ourselves that as the rent begins to climb in the greatest city in the
world, pricing out the artists who put it on the map.

How many of us are stuck in homes we can’t save because we can’t afford the studio that would
save us?

How many of us swallow our pride to work jobs that take more than they give, whether we like
them or not?

How many of us at the end of our days stare at the ceiling and wonder “when can I afford to
make my art?” with the fear that the answer may be never.

Never?

Is that true?

Never?

As we fight and force our bodies to live lives we never dreamed of?
Lives that seemed to dream of eating us whole.
Days that seem to gnaw on your bones.

I’ve come to you, half-eaten, to share my struggle.

I don’t have advice as much as it feels like a mandate in a world that values dollar signs over
lives saved by the bravery of sharing your humanness with the world.

Reader, please remember your work means something even when no one is looking.
Your dreams aren’t as far as you may think.
My time at Haven Boxing showed me in just how many forms an artistic performance can take
place.
You might be one yes away from feeling better as an artist than you have in years.

I was.

I know we constantly ask ourselves, when will I afford to make my art?
Often because we want something grand and impactful.
Please remember that impactful isn’t synonymous with expensive.
It may not look how you think it should or walk like you hoped it would,
But, I promise the worlds in your head will blossom if you let them.

I want you to believe that you’re stellar.
You are worth more than all your dreams and sacrifices put together.

“A bank account could never match [your] worth,” Tyler, the Creator, “Sorry Not Sorry.”

Maybe you’ve gotten sick, lost a parent or two, cared for a child that was or wasn’t yours,
worked a job you loved or hated, whatever it is for you, I know you can get through it.

The life you’re dreaming about is possible. There are no ceilings in life despite the ones the
system tries to create.

Please write.
Please sing.
Please rap.
Please bring change.
Don’t chase fame or diamond rings or typical things trying to fill the void your heart left.
Make your art at home in your present, especially if it doesn’t look how it “should.”

Fuck should.
This is real life.
You’re one beautiful work of art, and I promise more people would want to see you than you
realize.
Most of all, you see you better than anyone else.

Who can afford to make art?
When can I afford to tell my story?

My friend, I think the real question is:

What could you possibly lose if you don’t?

Don’t wait for a perfect day that will never arrive.

You have arrived.

You are wealthy.

You are alive.

So show us what you’ve got inside your head. We’re waiting.