226. A Job Title I Made up for Myself

As it turns out, you're allowed to do that sort of thing.

Dear reader,

There are a number of new readers on the list. And it has been a long time since I did a formal re-introduction. So. Hello! 👋🏼

Photo credit: Samantha Dion Baker! (New York, 2023)

My name is Nishant and I am a Sneaky Artist. It’s a job title I made up for myself. As it turns out, you are allowed to do that. From what I understand, you only have to convince a few people that it is real. And word spreads.

Not that it was easy to begin this way. Before I could convince anyone else, I had to convince myself, which is difficult because I am a harsh critic of myself. Nothing in my life had lined up to direct me this way. I like to say that I am a deliberate artist, in that I made it happen out of pure determination. I like to say that I am an accidental artist, in that I did not set out to become one at all. I was in the middle of a PhD program in Neuroscience, when one thing led to another, and quite accidentally I became an artist.

In today’s post, that story.

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Ten years ago, with a Master’s degree in Bio-Mechanical Engineering, I was two years into a PhD program in Neuroscience. I did experiments with chronic stroke patients to figure out the neuromuscular deficiencies in their movement capabilities. The goal was to design personalized physical therapy by extracting useful numbers from their brain activity and muscular reflexes. I was collecting dozens of brain and motor signals for hours on end. It was Big Data and Big Math. I was on my feet all day. This was at the Physical Rehabilitation Lab of the Northwestern University in downtown Chicago.

But I had a secret that no one at work knew.

The secret was that I had no ambitions around being a researcher or scientist. It was simply the thing I was reasonably good at. Growing up in India meant chasing after the responsible profession, not silly dreams. And all my (silly) dreams were about just one thing - becoming a writer.

Stick figure comic for Valentine’s Day. (2011)

Since I was young and learned that this was a thing people did, I wanted to write stories (but no one taught me), draw comics (but I could not draw), make scripts for television and movies (but I did not know people who knew people), and do stand-up comedy (but there were no comedy clubs where I was). So, as a Master’s student in the Netherlands and a PhD researcher in Chicago, every evening after the day’s work, that is what I did with my free time. I drew a stick figure webcomic that was mildly successful, made short films with friends, wrote dozens of short stories, became a script-writer for a political satire show on Indian television, and went to open mic nights at comedy clubs.

I left my PhD program because of one random night at a random comedy club in Chicago.

I saw an act that was bad. Like, really bad. All the jokes fell flat. The laughter was polite at best. But the comic remained unfazed. I had seen him before at other clubs. He always bombed. And he was always unfazed. I was new to the US, and I was new to this unique phenomenon rarely seen outside its borders - the incorrigible, supremely confident American.

He was never going to give up. He would give it everything every night at one place or another. He was committed unlike me. And as I clapped politely with the crowd at the end of his act, I asked myself why I was not committing. What else is the point of anything?

I made a decision then sitting in the near-darkness. That I would commit to my creativity and do everything I wanted to do. I quit my program a month later without really explaining myself. I think some of my ex-colleagues still have no idea why I left or what I do now. I moved in with my partner and started writing the greatest novel of all time.

“Kolkata-born engineer Nishant Jain flew in the face of expectations, threw in a PhD in biomechanics, and reinvented himself as a cartoonist, writer, and self-taught artist.” - listen to my story on the Science Friction Podcast.

You might not know this but writing a novel is very hard. Writing the greatest novel of all time is even harder than that. I hit one block, then another, and another. I stopped midway and restarted five times. But I kept getting stuck.

Drawing tiny people at the traffic light, Chicago. (2017)

When I picked up a sketchbook and headed outside, I was running away from my desk. But I was also chasing my curiosity for these crazy Americans. When I started drawing with a fountain pen, I was distracting myself from a writer’s block. But I was also tired of chastising myself over tiny mistakes, and all this poisonous perfectionism. When I started drawing from observation, I was deliberately not thinking about writing. But I also wanted to learn to draw.

Looking back, so many things had to fall into place for it to work out. I was incredibly lucky. To be surrounded by supporting and welcoming people in the town of Eau Claire (Wisconsin) where I sold art for the first time. To be in Chicago during the early pandemic, pivoting to the new normal by starting a podcast and this newsletter. To be in Vancouver, where so many people have given me opportunities to present my work.

Selling my self-published book at the Phoenix Park Farmer’s Market, Eau Claire, WI. (2019)

Luck is a part of it. But it also helps to be ready for it. To not make too many plans. To keep it simple. To chase after curiosity. And to leave room for magic. More on this next week.

📄 I answer Five Big Questions with Caroline Cala Donofrio

💻 A conversation about balancing authenticity with publicity with Sarah Fay Writers at Work

💻 A conversation about reframing the productivity narrative with Reframeables Podcast and Newsletter

Thank you for reading. I am glad to have a space in your inbox. Next week, lessons from pursuing curiosity, the enormous benefits of pivoting in the face of adversity, and more. If you like my work, consider supporting it by becoming a SneakyArt Insider.

One of my first sights of Vancouver, while quarantining in an AirBnB. (2021)