Authority

I'm finding this "renaissance" in my writing curious. What about "failing" to make it New York is energizing? Is it failing? I don't even know. I know I am sensitive to the "real world" accusation that unless a (writer/artist) is making money they are essentially (playing/masturbating) and the assumption (Calvinist-capitalist) is that this is Bad.
One could argue about the commodification of art, yadda yadda, the Rise of the Amateur (also yadda yadda), but away from the madding crowd the issue is fairly simple: do you have something to say (write) or something you want to show (paint)? Not everyone does. If you do, are are lucky. Whether it's a letter or a quilt (at the unassuming end) or a genius literary novel to be discovered posthumously or a trove of brilliant "outsider" art ditto fame after death, you are lucky if you want to DO something.
Now, the issue of authority.
Not unlike many of my peers (hippies, oi vey) I have struggled with the issues of authority and mentorship, vis a vis the creative arts. [Let's leave the bigger issues of world politics out of it for a moment.] Having come to the conclusion that much of my earlier (marijuana-inspired and sustained) "art" was indeed masturbation (of sorts) I tried (see: Sober Self) to LEARN what it was I was supposed to do. I only did this with writing, however. I learned. I took CLASSES, had MENTORS, the last being a fellow from New York, a good writer, but a rather cautious guy vis a vis one's chances for PUBLISHING. Taking on this person (Daddy?) was a kind of therapy for me, an antidote to the "marijuana days" that produced works so tiny and personal they had no way at all of "getting out" to a larger audience [Once my weak connection to the Black Mountain School was severed--another "interesting" story.]
So...
I did what he said.
And now I'm not.
I always wondered how I would feel to "fail" at publishing. Would it be like what they say about San Francisco, why there are so many suicides there -- it's the last stop for so many and when they fail there, there is only the ocean.

But none of that is happening. I am happily creating, even reviving projects "rejected" by my NY mentor.
Hip Hippie Hooray