Day 4

Three more listings are live today. I’ve sent out a few offers, but no sales today. I’m seeing in reseller groups that many people are experiencing cyclical lulls and spikes, of which I also experience. There’s an assumption that eBay cycles through sellers depending on their activity. The idea is that larger sellers and older sellers get consistent exposure, and then the lower tier or newer sellers are cycled through. I’m not 100% convinced that’s the case at this point, but there is an obvious cycle. Or maybe it’s simply about what items people want, proper pricing, key words, and good photos.

I plan to add Mercari on tomorrow. I have multiple listings that would do well on that platform.

I miss Amazon. The sales were faster. It was, however, much harder finding products I could actually sell and profit from, but once they were in the system, they sold quickly. The issue with Amazon is not only the restrictions becoming more severe, but the software that’s necessary to work, which is costly with my strained income.

I’ve considered digital products. But I can’t wrap my head around it. Do people really buy them? The only digital product I’ve ever bought was a brush and texture pack for Procreate.

I’ve also considered print on demand.

There’s an inner conflict present with selling art. I want to sell art. But when I make it a job, all I feel is pressure to make money. And my art never feels good enough. I like creating just to do it. Not to perform or capitalize.

I’ve been taught you can’t expect life to feel good. It’s left me with the impression that if I feel bad, it must be the right way. If I feel good, I must be avoiding some sort of deeper purpose. That’s pretty much how I got into every dead end relationship I’ve ever been in.

Humans believe there is inherent meaning in suffering, but there is not. We’ve built systems that confine us, give power to people who cause suffering, and praise those who accept disempowerment as identity. “This is just the way it is.”

We are who creates meaning. People spend their entire lives relinquishing their agency to the ideas of society, and then try to create meaning out of the suffering it’s caused them. You have to be able to accept you spent your whole life erasing yourself. The brain will do what it needs to protect you. Attaching meaning to suffering does that. People refuse to create what they really want out of fear, and then tell themselves that their regrets have some mystical, external meaning.

I’m trying to see if I can find meaning through flow and fulfillment, and doing things that feel right to me…not swallowing what’s force fed. God, it just comes at you from every angle, doesn’t it? Relentless.

The most difficult part about this is I have not been given a map. You get a map with college. You get a map at a 9-to-5. You know what to expect.

It’s just one foot in front of the other over here. I’m scared. And I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know anybody who’s done it. But what if I can?

Court