artists

What is Your Value

August 4, 2026August 4, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Ever felt like you are nothing?

Valueless. Transparent, like no one can see you. And you’re screaming truth, cited facts, pouring your heart out, jumping through hoops to be noticed, heard, but you’re still ignored, marginalized. Worthless.

Ever feel invisible to everyone, even your reflection? Like, ‘who are you?’ when your eyes connect in the mirror.

Sometimes, when people say my name, I don’t know who they’re talking to, as if Jeri isn’t me.

I get most people reading this won’t understand what I mean—how it feels to feel like nothing—unless you are an artist, a depressive, or a realist. I’m all three, sadly. I’m also an idealist—profoundly awestruck by our creativity and ingenuity—and consistently disappointed by how often I, we, fall short of our amazing potential.

When I go black, my daughter and a few dear friends try to pull me back into the light by listing my accomplishments. Never works. The life I’ve lived—most of what I’ve done, from raising kind kids to navigating a 30 yr marriage to an autistic man, to a career in entrepreneurship and education, to fine writing novels and short works—seems so…small. Insignificant, touching so few. Like my mama, somehow I wanted to matter to more than just my kids.

Where do you get your value? Most people likely don’t dwell on this question. Sleep. Eat. Work. Play. Pay bills…etc., most don’t philosophize much after college when real life takes over. Beyond the overworked and the apathests who don’t ponder, as an artist and an idealist I’ve often wondered why some seem to be born with an inner confidence [I sorely lack], or a delusional self-image [I do not wish to attain].

During my dating years, most of the men I met ‘were at a great place in their life,’ and touted they ‘liked themselves,’ (with or without a partner). Ok…sure, but why? In my 20s, many were beer-bellied, broke, and living in a shared flat or still with their folks. By my mid-30s, most were middle to high earners, but were pudgy, balding, divorced and blamed it all on ‘that bitch,’ instead of seeing their fault in the marriage.

Met up with a new friend last week. Over chips and tacos he told me how he ‘only dates beautiful women.’ And they better have ‘chemistry’ when kissing, and be willing to get laid pretty quick into the relationship or he was out. He had to be kidding. He’s 72 yrs old, balding, in creaky shape with new hips and other health issues, divorced twice, in education all his life so not well off, living in a sketch part of town. For some reason it eluded him why the women he met didn’t want to come to his place.

Does Elon Musk think he’s great because he’s the richest guy on the planet? Or is he delusional that he’s an inventor when he hasn’t invented literally anything except the Cybertruck, and that ugly, hulking metallic piece of shit is an abject failure in the auto industry with plunging sales since its 2023 launch.

Does being rich, or a CEO or high-paid exec of some oil company, bank, or venture capital firm make you valuable? A Silicon Valley colleague and friend seems to think so. He recently held a conference matching founders to VC and was very impressed with the caliber of the executive panelists. Extensive research plays that from Elon to the head of Chevron, most who’ve risen to the top of the corporate ladder are psychopaths.

Psychopathy, according to Psychology Today, involves being impulsive, not troubled by anxiety, nor by feelings for others. It includes being aggressive, ready to assign blame to anyone but oneself, yet also able to manipulate and influence others. Does this not sound like Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E? He defended millions in executive bonuses rather than investing utility profits into repairing the frayed pipeline that exploded in San Bruno destroying 38 homes and burning eight people to death. And I’ll bet you Peter still thinks himself valuable—intelligent, accomplished, savvy—even beyond his $35M exit package six months after the fire he let happen.

Had parathyroid surgery recently. The surgeon assured me in effusive detail that he was ‘absolutely sure’ only one of my parathyroids had a tumor and the surgeon at UW Medical was wrong in her diagnosis of hyperplasia. Turned out, UW was right. When I woke from surgery, the surgeon had removed two and a half of my four parathyroids. What made him so sure he was right, especially with evidence from multiple tests done at UW showing more than one tumor? Why was he so sure of his assessment over UW’s? What on earth made this man such an arrogant prick? Not once in post op, or in the follow-up a month later did he apologize for his diagnostic mistake. And I’ll bet you that doc never, ever questions his value.

I’ve been slamming myself as long as I can remember—suffocated by the weight of self-doubt and self-recrimination. Started with my family constantly putting me down—my mother insisting looking ‘put together’ would win me friends and later dates. My father assured me women were meant to be seen, not heard, and I’d better act demure with men or I’d be single the rest of my life. I could blame my lack of self-image on my parentage, but really? I could call out my husband of 30 yrs for ignoring or forgetting 80+% of what I say with what he didn’t want to hear, blaming me or colleagues instead of taking responsibility for his fuck-ups, but that’s autism.

My lack of self-esteem didn’t come outta nowhere. Failing to be a trad woman by my parents’ reckoning, and feeling invisible in my marriage certainly hasn’t helped my self-image any. Nor has my limited success as an author. Fine writing—fiction, short works, biz books—for over 20 years and I have just over 12,000 followers on my socials collectively. And no, for folks who don’t know, that is not good.

“Did I make a difference?” my mother wept on her deathbed. “Did I even matter?”

She meant beyond her kids, her husband and a few dear friends. She wanted to make a difference to the world outside her limited sphere, and she did as a marine science educator of So. Central elementary kids. But I get how she felt. I, too, want to be so much more than I am, and have been—be kinder, more patient, nurturing, less anxious and afraid. I want to reach more readers—encourage thinking and questioning, invite engagement and authentic communication.

Winston Churchill explicitly told his private secretary, Anthony Browne: “I have worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal—in the end to achieve nothing.”

In the days leading up to his suicide in 1890, Vincent Van Gogh told his brother, Theo, “he had failed, as a man and as an artist.” He sold only three paintings his entire career. (Kind of like an author today having only 12,000 followers after writing to be read for over 20 yrs, says the voice in my head).

“You’re your own worst enemy,” my husband tells me. And ofc, he’s right. For our first decade together, he, too, thought his shit didn’t smell—literally, he used to tell me he couldn’t smell the stink he created in the bathroom. Until recently, he was sure of his own rightness, certain his thoughts and opinions were based in reason, which is why he didn’t listen to mine. He assumed he understood his feelings and the actions (or lack thereof) they motivated. Thirty years of marriage and nine therapist later (some for years), he’s just beginning to acknowledge the black box of his mind that allowed him to live in delusion.

I have a hard time with delusion, which is likely why I see me as I am at times—nothing. Those moments I’m so wrapped up in my dark pity party I can’t see that essentially, we all are. Regardless of our contributions in life—an Insta influencer with 10M followers or Einstein—all of us make very little difference beyond our small sphere. We will be missed by few upon death, and only for a short time, then forgotten.

Reminding myself that it simply doesn’t matter if I matter beyond the lives I touch directly, and that life is a collection of moments and to make them as pleasurable as possible brings color into black. Present with those I care about who care for me, or immersed in the process of writing, engaged with my creative muse conjuring worlds and the people in them, I forget about feeling like nothing.

Then the voice of doubt that I’m writing crap and no one will read me anyway creeps in while I’m staring at the blinking cursor and the blank space after it…

The Price of Brilliance

April 22, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

How do you get good at anything?

Practice.

How do you get great?

Obsession — Practice most all the time.

Pick any famous author, artist, or musician, and they’ll all have obsession in common. And while we, the public, enjoy the fruits of their creative labors, those closest to these individuals were/are generally left wanting more of them, more from them.

Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, “was an indifferent and often inattentive father and husband.”

Rod Serling, of Twilight Zone fame, “worked 12 hours a day seven days a week, [and] his wife, Carol, tended to their daughters, Jodi and Anne.”

Adrienne Armstrong, wife of Billy Joe Armstrong of Greenday, said of her husband after the release of the album American Idiot, “I think it challenged us to a new level, pushed us pretty far, the farthest I ever want to go.”

The creatives above are all men. All married and all had/have children.

Now let’s explore a few famous women.

The romance novelist Jane Austen never married. She was, in fact, ‘relieved in later life to have avoided the pitfalls of married life, not least the huge risks of childbirth, “all the business of Mothering.’”

Georgia O’Keeffe, the surrealist painter, “wanted to have children but agreed with him [her husband, Alfred Steiglitz] that motherhood was incompatible with her art. She needed to focus all of her attention on her painting.”

Oprah Winfrey, the media mogul has never married. “The very idea of what it means to be a wife and the responsibility and sacrifice that carries — I wouldn’t have held that very well.” And she never had children. “If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the “Oprah” show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.”

Ms. Winfrey had the guts to address the unvarnished, unspoken truth when she referred to the “responsibility and sacrifice,” in being a partner and mother. She understood the investment of time, physical and mental energy it takes to be a conscientious parent would have interfered, even waylaid immersion with her siren to grow a multi-billion-dollar empire.

Men have historically been the breadwinners of the family. And while this trend is slowly changing, the fact is women who seek personal excellence, especially in the arts, often have to choose between pursuing greatness and being, at least, an available partner and parent. Even today, men rarely have to make this choice.

Regardless of this sexist disparity, anyone, man or woman, obsessed with becoming great [at anything] should recognize the sacrifice and cost of pursuing brilliance.

As a wife, mother, and writer, my creative muse is constantly vying for prominence in my hierarchy of desires. When my kids were babies, my creative process encountered fewer distractions. I could stay rapt in storytelling, run dialog in my head while watching them play at the park or practice Lil’ Kicker’s soccer. Small kids, small problems. Now the parent of two young adults, my muse is often drowned out by the very real traumas and trials of adulting my children face every day. To help them navigate these tumultuous times, I question, probe, and even invade their space to stay connected, be there for them as a sounding board, a trusted confidant, be their ground when they’re falling, or envelop them in a hug.

I chose to marry and have kids. And while I am present, available for my family, forfeiting the hours I could have been making it with my muse writing was a battle I engaged in daily. Much of my fiction focuses on this internal war. My novel, Reverb, illustrates the cost of a guitarist’s obsession with creating music. Disconnected confronts the reality that women can’t ‘have it all’ — be everything we want to be, and still be there for our kids and family.

We glorify the brilliant author, the renowned artist, the genius scientist, and successes in business, often secretly wish to be one of them. Entrepreneurs that have built global companies made their startups their newborns, investing their time and energy in growing the business. To become great at anything means obsessively working at that job or craft, honing a skill set with relentless practice, which is the fundamental reason why genius is so rarely achieved.

Google “Genius,” and “Einstein” is in the first several pages of search returns. Einstein had intellectually incoherent views on politics, economics, and psychology, and by most accounts from colleagues and family, he sucked at relationships. Focusing solely on math and physics, he neglected most everything else, but he was one hell of a physicist.

Obsessive practice, to the exclusion of most everything else, is a reliable indicator of achieving brilliance. And now that my kids are grown and on their own, I have more time to make it with my muse, and I do. But truth be told, while it used to matter to me to be someone, achieve ‘famous writer’ status, or at least a Wiki page, not so much anymore. I’d never have been a creative director, a founder and entrepreneurship educator. So absorbed in my own greatness, I’d never have cultivated the truly intimate relationships I now have, or earned the status of Partner and Mom if I’d chosen the road of pursuing the title of ‘brilliant.’ I’d miss too much living such a hyper-focused life. Besides, it’s so much more fun to hang at home with loved ones, watch Netflix and be entertained by those who’ve ‘made it.’ ;-}

Aging Well

March 4, 2025 by jcafesin, posted in aging

I’m a ‘sit on the couch and eat ice cream’ type of person. I don’t live that way. I workout 5 days a week, 5 miles or more a day, watch little TV and rarely stream ’cept when I’m working out and weekend movies. If I had no desire to live an active life, I would have continued to sit on the couch in front of the TV and eat a lot more than just ice cream as I did throughout much of my childhood.

Thing is, no matter how healthy I live, I’m still going to die. And while we all know this fact, generally by the time we are 5 yrs old, we don’t think about it much unless there is a life-threatening scare or we’re facing old age, like when we turn 60 or so. Then, regardless of what older folks tell you, and how we distract ourselves with work or hobbies or relationships, we think about death a LOT.

Am I living right? Getting the most out of this short life? Have I experienced enough? Have I loved enough? Have I had enough fun? What can I do to get the most out of the few years I have left?

What to do with aging…

The idea of heaven is vulgar. I think The Good Place played that hand well. At the end of the series, they were all up in heaven and got so bored after doing everything they could conceive they elected to become nothing, or ‘one with everything’ depending on how you view the afterlife. And ‘getting to see’ people you’ve loved in the hereafter is equally vulgar. Sure, you’ve loved them, but I bet you’ve fought with them too. Can you imagine spending eternity — forever — with your mom and dad and siblings and spouses? No thank you!

I am a devout Atheist, meaning I don’t believe in god, or even the possibility of one. I don’t believe in an afterlife, or spirituality, whatever that means. Hitler (Trump) and I end up the same. Dead is dead. End of game. Life is over and there is no ME anymore. I did not exist before my birth and I cease to exist after I die.

It’s easier to believe in the Christian version of death. Less scary thinking your existence is eternal. That’s why, to date, 31+% of this planet identifies as Christian. Muslims, the second largest religion on Earth, also offers an afterlife in paradise or hell. Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism also preach forms of life after death, so it’s no wonder that 84% of humanity identifies with a religion.

The roughly 14+% of the rest of us living day-to-day knowing that we all become nothing after death is core scary at best.

We all want to feel our lives have significance. Substance. Meaning. That we matter! It is why social media exists — it plays on our desire to be seen. Every time we get a Like on our instastory, or see a high view or engagement count we all get a hit of dopamine straight into our brains. We may be shy, or awkward in groups or crowds, but no one wants to be invisible through life. We revel in being seen.

Now, facing old age, and likely 20 to 30 yrs on the outside before ceasing to exist, I’m at war with myself daily on how to spend the limited time I have to live, to BE ALIVE. To matter.

What does it really mean to MATTER? Three generation drops from now and most won’t remember today’s trending influencers, to our current or past pop/rockstars, to our great grandfathers. I know this intellectually, but emotionally I too want to be remembered by more than just my remaining family, and when they go, so does my memory, my significance. It’s hard, if not impossible to imagine not existing, though at 4:00am I lay in bed too often now panicked by the notion.

Kick back, honey, I tell myself as I stare at the glowing stars I stuck on the bedroom ceiling during the series Heroes when it got too bloody to watch throughout. I should just do what I feel like doing when I get up in the morning and quit pressuring myself to be someone. I already am to my kids, and a few friends. The problem, the war in my head that loops till twilight: ‘Why isn’t that enough for me?’

Close to 30 yrs ago a friend asked me to describe my perfect day a decade forward. From waking up till falling asleep that night, describe in detail what that day looked like to me. Let’s just say I didn’t get close. [Expectations. They’ll screw you every time.] I was supposed to be a known author long ago. I was supposed to have a house in Marin to leave to my well-adjusted, accomplished children. Married to the love of my life. My work read by tens of thousands, my words helping my readers become more personally and socially aware, live better lives.

Did I want too much? I lay in bed wondering why it matters to me that I’ll leave no real imprint on history. Who does, really. Albert Einstein comes to mind. Hitler does too, but oh so very few. And even those names will fade with time, buried under layers of more history.

I want to fall asleep and stay asleep through the night like I used to. I don’t want to be getting up 4 times a night to pee! I’d like to tell you that impending death looming doesn’t feel like the proverbial ax over my head since no one knows when they’ll die, or that age is ‘just a number’ and ‘it only matters how young you feel,’ but that’s all bullshit. You can skydive on your 90th but that doesn’t keep you from being old, and likely rather reckless with fragile bones.

I sigh heavily, then throw the blanket back and roll on my side trying to cool down with my third hot flash of the night. The weight of aging gets harder to bear with each passing year, month, day. Hate to tell ya, there ain’t much upside to getting old. We likely have more life experience, but we aren’t any wiser, most of us stuck in patterns of behavior we adopted in childhood, and the reason history keeps repeating itself.

Look at my phone on the nightstand next to my bed. It’s only 5:10am. I can get up and spend much of the day SMM my latest work to get read and try to ignore the fact that I viscerally hate marketing. Or I can laze the day away writing whatever moves me, reading, baking, building, get a massage, stream Netflix if I feel like it because why the hell not enjoy BEING ALIVE with the limited time I have left…