Brush Strokes and Afterlife – or – The Cruelty of Age Discrimination

“Art is a jealous mistress and if a man has a genius for painting […] he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.” R. W. Emerson

Afterlife, after here. My next life, my next job. Where do we go from here? If I continue down the path I have been taking, at the end of this mission I will end up asking myself the same questions I couldn’t answer four months ago.

Today I contemplated a first option: the most unlikely and of course the most attractive. It’s been sitting in the back of my mind for some years now, but I never considered it seriously. Now, for some reason, it doesn’t seem as utopian as it did. May be I got accustomed to the implications, may be I lost track of what people are expected to achieve, may be I can’t remember as clearly as before what I want to become and why. Besides, I just started to understand and admit that I will not win the rat race, I have become to fat. Rack-a-tack-tack.

Go back to school and get a degree in fine arts. No, become a full time creator. Live solely on my imagination and my skills. No, earn a living by being fully dependent on other’s will to waste money on superficial and expensive things.

America. Study in the School of Art of a top University, may be in New York –to add fun to the fun – and get a bachelor’s degree in two years. I am a man with a plan. $60,000 to $80,000 for the degree. I am a bamboozled man.

Back to basics. Paris, France, my home town, my shelter. “Les Beaux Arts” one of the most prestigious Art School in the world. The admission tests seem very tough but I can cope with that. And then shock! Get out. Students must be at most 26 years old on the day of admission. All my hopes suddenly crumble down.

I’ll be starting to save – or rather find – money. Approximately 100$ a day as of today.