recently i have been very into reading nietzsche's works, and one concept i've stumbled upon (in beyond good and evil) is the strength of the will. from aphorism 208 to the end of the chapter we scholars (213) he talks about philosophers and how they are required to have a strong will. he says that "today the taste of the time and the virtue of the time weakens and thins down the will; nothing is as timely as weakness of the will. In the philosopher's ideal, therefore, precisely the strength of the will, hardness, and the capacity for long-range decisions must belong to the concept of "greatness"-" (212) and "With a creative hand they reach for the future, and all that is and has been becomes a means for them, an instrument, a hammer. Their "knowing" is creating, their creating is a legislation, their will to truth is--will to power."(211)

it's a way of fulfilling that instinct, the will to power, a confident attitude to willing and doing stuff in your life - an idea that nietzsche really seems to admire. i was moved by it when reading the book, because it's a more crystallized version of thoughts that i myself have had in my life. often the idea that i have of myself is of someone who doesn't do anything creative. that i don't do much (in the past few years i've been doing pretty much nothing (it's beginning to change luckily)). nietzsche talks about artists too - that they somewhat understand this idea of the strength of the will. i don't have prospects for becoming a philosopher, but i do want to make stuff(visual art, music), and i think putting what nietzsche said about philosophers onto the concept of the artist works really well.

"do something. anything. do whatever, you know; start a milk factory, go make a magazine, get a job, draw a painting. do anything, you know. just, have fun. stay safe. safe sex. safe drugs. and have fun, that's it." -yung lean, montreality, 2019

drain gang and sadboys represent this strength of the will for me. they are idols - people that i look up to for their virtues, people that i aspire to be like for their seemingly constant creative work and creation. bladee releases a project, on average, every six months, and something tells me that all of them are always making music; they have so much stuff in the vault. ecco does a lot of work in different kinds of mediums: music, photography, visual art, fashion, jewellery.

for me it's fear. in the past few years i've been afraid of creating - mostly drawing - and it's been one of the biggest problems in my life. all i want is to express myself in art, but it's been so hard for me. i can't designate the reasons for how i got so self-conscious about my creations, maybe it was the environment i grew up in, maybe my previous low self-esteem - maybe all the youtube videos i watched that told me how all my drawings should look like if i were to be able to break into the industry. someone like ethan becker - or basically all the major drawing youtubers. at the time i was ... . i know that my creativity was stunted.

recently i've picked up on two different attitudes to making art from two different people in my life, specifically with drawing. on one hand i see my friend who is not "technically" skilled at all, but has very unique and creative subjects and sense of aesthetic, and on the other hand is a person who is very focused on the technical aspect of drawing (heavily influenced and striving for the animation industry art virtues that the youtubers strive for and tell you to strive for). i love my friend's drawings, they're so beautiful and unique to me, and in such opposition to the basic, strained and corporatized art of the other person.
i know at the end of the day the other persons art will probably grow into its own thing. what i want to say is that the other person is right now exactly where i was two/three years ago. and that mental state was so stressful and went against everything art should be. there's a reason i recognize it and am so repelled by it when i see it.

all i want is to enter that state of free creative practice, indifferent to any future mastery and recognition.