See about 15 years ago, maybe less maybe more depending on wether you do or do not count my humble beginnings helping my school friends out making Slasher Movies on a home camcorder when I was 15, I have worked, for the most part, pretty fucking hard at what I do and let me tell you its not something that falls naturally into my lap. I was never good at it (I'm not saying I am now, just better than I was) but fuck I worked hard, for a long time to make sure that I could work to professional standard, and that for me has been the biggest and more importantly is still the biggest journey I face on my road to being what I hope to one day deem a successful artist in my chosen medium. In this case referring to Horror Movies, but of course I can equally apply this notion to my band Subject 7, or many other things that have done over the years.
It seemS however that people very quickly can choose to ignore the fact that you worked hard, at one point I was working three jobs, trying to set up a company attending university FULL FUCKING TIME!! and I think people lose sight of that and just choose to see the end result and view that as Luck. I'm coming to a point here as working around a lot of students this weekend I came to realise that there is one thing that we are lied to about for most of our lives. Especially when working in the creative industries and that is that others will respect you and appreciate it if you work hard, if you make something of yourself.
Now hold on a second , I'm not saying that I am in anyway now a successful person, so please don't read this as an ego trip. Also please don't think that I'm applying this to everyone, there are a handful of people out there who support us, who have helped me personally and I am eternally grateful and if the scales were tipped in this kind of behaviour the world in general would be a better place. I simply believe that after 8 years of fucking pushing harder than I ever thought I would ever have to I feel like I might just have Achieved something and that seems to have made a lot of people angry.
Because there is a truth here, if you work hard and try and create something from nothing, to better your life, your position, people for the most part will hate you quite simply because, and I quote Bill Nighy in Hot Fuzz here "You're making us all look bad". Yes because you have tried to do something and they gave up long ago or never got up and tried to begin with, they will create a problem. A very real problem, unfortunately that problem is with themselves and as people we find that hard to accept and so we 'choose' to make our issue someone else's. But of course thats not very helpful when you suddenly realise that 'some people' don't like for what seems like no reason.
Now just for a second, imagine you work 18 hour days, hard days. Imagine you strain most relationships around you because of the amount of time you have to commit to your art/business/career and then imagine that you have to get up every single day knowing that some people are going to dislike you immensely for that, sometimes to level of sabotage or worse. Imagine now doing the impossible knowing that your payment is that. And I stand there every day and say is it worth it... and without even a blink I say... Yes.
Why?
Because my job is to make Those people Look Bad.
You know who you are ;)
MJ
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