I’m not an expert on anything. I may have some deeper knowledge in certain areas, like where to find artist opportunities or how to find your next book to read, but really I’m just a forty-year old father of two looking for ways to make it all work: parenting, partnering, homeowning, and artmaking. That’s just me, but I know I share a lot in common with the working artists who read this blog. Maybe like you, I feel the scarcity of money, time, and bandwidth. Maybe like you, I put a lot of undue pressure on myself to get things right all the time. And maybe like you, I long for an alternative, a flipping of the switch, a key that will unlock the mysteries of what it means to be a human in this world.
A scarcity mindset—when we make decisions driven both by substantiated and exaggerated fears of not having enough resources—is a very real thing. Under such conditions, “the mind orients automatically, powerfully, toward unfulfilled needs,” writes Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir in their book, Scarcity. “Scarcity causes us to tunnel: to focus single-mindedly on managing the scarcity at hand.” Sounds pretty limiting. Where is the space to dream, to be creative, to be hopeful?
It seems pretty apparent that a scarcity mindset can be detrimental. The question that follows: does its opposite, an abundance mindset, offer an equal and opposite counteraction?
To me, not quite. An abundance mindset—operating from the belief that there is more than enough to go around, for everyone—looks great on paper, but so does positivity. So does optimism. While the detriments of a scarcity mindset are more straightforward, the detriments of an abundance mindset, more specifically the sometimes flippant way it is presented to us, are sadly more insidious. By being presented as simple, we feel like we are incapable of such simplicity when we struggle to maintain such a positive outlook. By eschewing the very real problems of scarcity that working artists deal with, this notion that we just need to shift our mindset just sets us up for more disappointment. How would that be much better than a scarcity mindset?
Are scarcity and abundance real or relative things? I mentioned in the beginning that I’m not an expert, but I have a better understanding of how those concepts land, and enmesh, for me in my life, just like you do in yours. For instance, I know the anxiety associated with shelling out for basic necessities while coming to terms with the fact that an exorbitant percentage of my paycheck goes toward health insurance coverage for the members of my family. And I also know that sometimes buying takeout for dinner allows me to spend more time in the evening with my kids instead of frugally spending it in the kitchen. Maybe for you, it’s shelling out for new art supplies, not because your current supplies aren’t usable anymore, but you need motivation to get back into the studio. Is there any way that the interplay of scarcity and abundance can allow us to be more creative, be more patient and forgiving with ourselves and our choices, be more humanly us?
For the next quarter, Inciter Art will be exploring the concept of abundance and what that might mean for working artists. Because we all arrive at concepts with our experiences on our shoulders, I’d love to hear the different ways abundance resonates (or doesn’t) with other people. Inspirational? Aspirational? Utopian? Toxic? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Again, there’s no key, there’s no switch. What there can be is more understanding, more perspective, and hopefully more growth.