The proposed solution is to not change anything. If you feel like you are making progress, why change? We know from exercise science that shock and constant variety are bad. You need to settle in, find a rhythm and pursue progress until the end. The only reason to change is when you have stopped making progress, or if you need to focus on an under-developed area.
But If I don’t go to Western, I need to make a sacrifice. If I give up on Western, it must be because I’m doing something else instead.
Academic studies and highly-developed ideas are how one can set themselves apart as an artist. It’s easy enough to be sensitive; it’s a greater challenge to have command of one’s craft; it is most difficult of all to be sensitive, have a command of one’s craft, and also to be knowledgeable. That’s what sets one apart: knowledge is power, after all. The final cherry on top is for the knowledge to be instrumentalized, i.e. to have a political ideology.
What sacrifice is called for? Do I want to continue working in restaurants? If I am able to make the same in this new job, or at least to earn the bottom end of the range—and to have up to 40 hours per week; well, there would not be much reason to continue working in service.
Nietzsche said that anyone who has less than two-thirds of the day for themselves is a slave. 21, maybe 28 hours per week, I would have enough money to support myself and enough time to write. But it’s not clear if I can’t just write right now. I should be able to—there’s enough time in the day, after all; it’s not like I’m doing something all the time. Ritual is the only thing that can make it work.
To depend on these rituals, this routine, and yet—to remain open to the spontaneity of Being. That’s the real challenge. That’s the seeming impossibility.