This is not a ‘business’ for me. Yuck. The word sticks in my throat. It reeks of polyester suits, stiff shoes and thinly veiled contempt. Once bitten, twice shy perhaps. I got the merest whiff of it while working for a large engineering firm when I was young. Combative socialising, tinder dry conference events and soul squishing business meetings forever put me off the whole idea.
No, I do not consider myself a businessman, despite ostensibly running a business; a very small business, not even a cottage industry, more like a little garden shed, tiny house type of affair. Of course, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs consider me a business and remind me regularly of the tax due. But I do not feel like a business person. Far from it, I feel more like someone with obsessive personality disorder who accidentally found a way to make money selling little fragments of obsession.
It can have many benefits, and many negatives, to have a brain that is inclined to fixate on single tasks. I can get complicated things done without interruption, but I can also waste a lot of time on inconsequential nonsense. Present me with a problem, (a commission) and I will work away at it until it is finished, which is great. Unless I get stuck. That is when the spot lamp of fixation is pointed elsewhere. And like a claustrophobic spelunker in the dark, the only path I can see is the one my torch is pointing at. Right now, it is, bicycles.
I was once very obsessed with cycling. I moved to London and someone pinched my bike. It was a run-of-the-mill commuter bike, but I rather liked it. It did the thing I needed it to do; got me from A to B. Then it was gone and I needed a new one. On the recommendation of the CEO of the company I had just started working for (he happened to be an ex-professional racer), I bought a cheap fixed gear road bike. The last time I had swung my leg over a road bike was probably in 1989, a red boneshaking racer that didn’t agree with me. This one I bought was stealth black from tire to bars, fixed gear and alarmingly lively compared to my now forgotten commuter. I still have it on my wall and while I now recognise some of its deficiencies, at the time, I had never experienced anything like it. I pushed the pedal down and it came alive. It sprang along the road effortlessly. It made no sound but for the hum of spinning tires on tarmac. And the fixed-gear was a force of its own. You can’t stop pedalling! It wont stop pedalling. It will compel you along the road or kick you off without warning. It was like some sort of wild animal and I was immediately hooked.
For five or six years I was a dedicated cyclist. I identified as a cyclist. I wore lycra, had a power meter, cleats, bananas, coffee, gels, chamois cream, 69 kg, 255 FTP. I would go out on hundred mile rides at the weekend, sometimes on a fixed gear just for the fuck of it. I once cycled from Edinburgh to Lancaster (162miles) on a whim; just kept peddling south until I got to England and kept going, it’s all down hill anyway. I built my own bike frame out of carbon fibre and bamboo poles just because I thought about it and got obsessed with the idea. I had, and still have, too many bikes. But like most of my obsessions, the fire burned out as my gaze was directed elsewhere.
When I was 35 I quite my job as an engineer, moved to New Zealand and bought a van. While there, I decided to become an illustrator. I had been toying with the idea for years and this seemed the right time to revive my old dream, my old obsession. And in reviving this dream from my childhood, I revived an number of other obsessions; namely, video games and skateboarding. I basically became an adult version of my 15 year old self. I quite liked him. I was a nice kid. I was quiet and insular, perhaps prone to moodiness, but generally pleasant. The more I accepted this old self, the more I like him. He felt like me. So I dove into it. Became fixated with illustration, video games and skateboarding. And I was happy.
I am still happy. Reviving who I was when I was young was probably the wisest decision I have ever made. The motivation to bury that part of me was multiplex and stupid, based on fear and paranoia. The move to be who I already was required a certain sense of no longer giving a fuck what other people thought of me. Quitting my job helped me over the line. Taking up skateboarding again, sealed the deal. If I am going to fixate on things, which is my nature, then I may as well fixate on things that make me happy; not some miserable office job, with suits and ties and business meetings and responsibility. Yuk.
I owe my current career to my obsessive nature … but I am less obsessed with it now. That’s a good thing. It is a job. I have lost the fixation on becoming an illustrator. I am an illustrator. Now the fixation comes as little short term obsessions. Each small commission is like a little fixation. In and out. I get the chance to fixate and exorcise that part of me, but it doesn’t last long enough to become a burden.
I recently recognised that fixation is emotionally similar to inspiration. It feels like it comes from the same place. Inspiration might be the positive form of fixation. It feels lighter, like the beginning of a new relationship, the romantic part. Fixation, on the other hand, is heavy. It has a weight that doesn’t lift until the task is done or the relationship ends. Despite these differences, they feel like parts of the same thing. They have the same source.
The piece at the top of this post that I made for Erik at The Intrinsic Perspective is a good example of inspiration/ fixation. I sat on it for a couple of months while directing my attention elsewhere. I had several ideas that just didn’t work. I didn’t feel it. I wasn’t inspired but it niggled inside. A part of me fixated on it. I covered up that fixation with other fixations; bikes mostly, and other commissions. I wasn’t inspired until I realised that I needed to use this isometric graph paper. See below.
The essay describes Erik’s blog like a little factory of thought. The graph paper lent itself perfectly to the aesthetic of engineering, machinery, detail drawings etc. I did this little sketch and suddenly felt inspired again. And it was easy.
I was exited to draw this. Inspired. I felt like a kid again. I became temporarily fixated. Happily scribbling, refining, tracing, scanning, fiddling all day and into the evening, until I was satisfied. Its not a business. It doesn’t make business sense to spend too long on a drawing but that’s not why I wanted to become an illustrator.
I became an illustrator to satisfy my obsessive nature without causing myself injury. My job as a structural engineer was stressful. I enjoyed it sometimes. I obsessed about it. I was fixated on it for a while. But that fixation came with a heavy weight. The weight of buildings. The weight of other peoples’ money, time, lives. I often couldn’t sleep because of the pressure I put myself under. Constantly going over and over structural details in my head. What did I miss? Did I explain it properly? Some people have a personality that can deal with this kind of pressure. I don’t.
The beauty of illustration is, nobody dies if I miss something; also, I love it and it was my childhood dream to be an artist, and I don’t have to work in an office or wear a suit, or anything for that matter, or talk to people, or be anywhere. Also, if I get stuck, I can slink off and engage in one of my other fixations. And like I said at the top, right now, it is bicycles.
I twisted my ankle skateboarding at the start of the year. A bad one. A high ankle sprain which I’ve been told take ages to get better. So I couldn’t skate. Then I remembered how bicycles had helped to rehabilitate my knees when I was young. Again, I had injured my knees into oblivion through skateboarding (obsessively). But cycling saved them. I used to have the knees of an 80 year old. They didn’t bend in the winter and I had to regularly thump them to get them to unlock. But now I have regular knees thanks to cycling. Ready to abuse again ha ha
I had forgotten how much I used to love cycling and building bikes. For the past few months, I have obsessively revived all of my bikes lying in storage. And built a couple of new ones. They are now shiny inside and outside. And some of them are now mounted on my wall in my house where I can look at them. I wont bore you with the details but the point is; reviving old obsessions can have a beauty that is missed the first time around. The first time around, the beauty is obscured by immersion. A familiar obsession has the vantage of distance. The beauty isn’t wasted.
