“Artists need to be loved she told an interviewer, ‘and to have rejection, silence, and indifference was very difficult.’” “She” is painter Grace Hartigan, the abstract expressionist artist of the early 50s and beyond – being quoted in the book “Restless Ambition,” by Cathy Curtis.
I was just into Chapter thirteen of the book when I first read that passage and it smacked my psyche like a padded mallet striking the calfskin surface of the tympani during the climax of Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” played at the beginning of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Hey, that’s me! Yep! No! Not Strauss – Hartigan! This cognition is due to my meandering mind weaving a variety of thoughtful threads while reading late into the night. But it’s true. I’ve been a cigar broker for close to 20 years and indeed, I’ve experienced all three – rejection, silence, and indifference from day one. And it is difficult. Very demanding.
Anyone who has ever made a living by introducing a new idea or product to a prospective client has been squeezed through an old-fashioned potato ricer. Over time you become comfortable with the pressure knowing that you will end up okay.
The difference comes into play that a typical artist is usually staring at a blank canvas, piece of wood, or some flat surface trying to create a personal moment to bring out into the open what only the mind’s eye can see or what the emotions are experiencing. Oftimes, sales are not the only goal. Often it’s just getting out what’s inside in a gifted way.
Whereas, the cigar broker is constantly hurled into the chaotic cacophony of personalities that are the bain of the business but the necessary standard of sales. Which one is more challenging and/or satisfying depends on the individual’s talent and knowledge of self. And “self” according to “Buddhist philosophy . . . is composed of five aggregates: physical form, sensation, conceptualization, dispositions to act, and consciousness.” (Google)
But wait. The point. The point is that a cigar broker, a writer, an artist, a musician, or whatever discipline he or she may concentrate upon – are individuals who are sluicing through maddening mixtures of all three notions (rejection, silence, and indifference) that are being haphazardly blended and slathered all over their inner being every day in what they do. And no one, I repeat NO ONE has the correct or right answer to the proportions, degree of intensity, or the limit of exposure to these three intangibles that make up the proper perfect persona for survival.
As regards Love. That’s another article.
IrvCigarBroker 