Being an artist is an endless, oft-thankless profession, one with an infinitesimally small chance of success!

How many people paint a beautiful picture, only to have it sit forever on their living room wall or gather dust in their garage? How many writers complete a book, only to have it languish amidst MILLIONS of others on bookstore shelves or Amazon’s virtual catalogues? How many poets write gorgeous poetry that is misunderstood, and their message lost to time? How many singers with angelic voices never make it because they are never “discovered” by the agent or talent scout who could pull them out of obscurity and put them in front of the right audience?

The number of truly successful artists is impossibly small compared to the number of people who throw their lives at the feet of Mistress Creativity. For every amazing success story, there are hundreds or even thousands more stories of artists who languish in obscurity and work their hardest without ever succeeding.

But who the f*** cares? Being an artist is about more than making money!

Sure, being able to earn a living from your art is the ultimate dream, but it’s the art that really matters most. If you are able to spend even a fraction of your time engaging in the form of art that wakes you up in the morning, keeps you awake at night, and puts a pep in your step, you are truly blessed!

Just like it takes a truly daring person to game $100,000 on a pair of deuces and a good bluff, it takes a truly daring person to gamble their future on the hope that their painting hand is steady, their writing skills are sharp, or their singing voice is up to snuff. More than daring, it takes a whole heck of a lot of crazy!

Someone once said, “The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

You may not be the next President or an inventor, but art is what makes us different from the rest of the animal kingdom. Only humans have the presence of mind to aspire to something greater than basic survival, and a large part of that aspiration comes in the form of art: paintings, books, music, words, and sculptures that showcase the true creativity and ingenuity of humans.

But humans are also the only ones crazy enough to gamble everything on the hope that their unique form of creativity is attractive to others. And so they should! Art is the common bond that every human on Earth shares. If you can summon up just enough crazy to go out on a limb and create something truly amazing, you are the kind of person who will change the world. Not in a political or environmental sense, but in a small personal sense. In your own way, you are making the world a better place by putting your art into it. That, for me, is more than enough cause to be crazy!

Andy Peloquin–a third culture kid to the core–has loved to read since before he could remember. Sherlock Holmes, the Phantom of the Opera, and Father Brown are just a few of the books that ensnared his imagination as a child.
Andy’s first attempt at writing produced In the Days: A Tale of the Forgotten Continent. He has learned from the mistakes he made and used the experience to produce Blade of the Destroyer, a book of which he is very proud.
His website (http://www.andypeloquin.com) is a second home for him, a place where he can post his thoughts and feelings–along with reviews of books he finds laying around the internet.

He can also be found on his social media pages, such as:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyPeloquin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andyqpeloquin
www.linkedin.com/in/andypeloquin/
https://plus.google.com/100885994638914122147/about
https://www.amazon.com/author/andypeloquin
https://www.facebook.com/andrew.peloquin.1