The progression of nighttime stories
When the bears were just little babies™, descriptions of how railroads work made the ideal nighttime story. As they get older, they require more sophisticated nighttime stories, so I find myself doing such lightweight things as explaining the history of religion and (tonight) how high energy physics works (this one started as a discussion of how you use cones to tell if you're firing a kiln properly.)
It's nice to actually be able to use some of my thwarted interest in physics (I was seduced away from physics by mathematics and playing with computers) for something. It would be lovely if we could use these nighttime stories to get them interested in science, but Russell appears to be more interested in pottery these days, and that would certainly work as a life's work after I win the lottery and can give him a million dollar trust fund.
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But it's a hit and miss proposition; I know a bunch of artists, and the vast bulk of them are living pretty close to the edge (or have day jobs and do their real work fitted around those jobs and the 70,000 other things that can fill up your day); I know a few who are making a fairly good living off art, but one of them spent 20 years doing a variety of day jobs to stay alive until the art bux™ started to roll in.
Russell will do what he wants to do; if he decides to be a potter, he'll be a potter and to hell with what the rest of the world thinks. But we'd better be Canadian (or EU; I'm not picky, except that Canada doesn't have discriminatory marriage laws) citizens by then, because otherwise the first time he gets sick he'll be bankrupted and tossed out on the street. That's where the trust fund comes in; if I can't GTFOOD and we're stuck in the American Imperium, the only way he'll have a chance is if he has a big old trust fund to back him up when something expensive (and, given the dysfunctional american "healthcare" system, a ingrown toenail counts as expensive) breaks.
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As an artist with a tech career, I submit that a potter can make a very good living without the need for a lottery winning. If the thought stills scares you, then think of it as a potential high-tech pottery career.