I like this painting. When I was inputting the hashtags necessary to get this piece even a tiny number of likes courtesy of the Instagram algorithm, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of resentment. Because I know this piece will largely drift by ignored and unloved. In a fit of petulance, I added the hashtag #myartisshitwhocares.

Who cares indeed. Recently, I thought of another artist – another trustfunder who can sit around scribbling to his hearts content and catch the eye of the right people – and how his debut film was called Wolfboy. There’s some autobiographical aspects to his work, which is why I thought sourly that if he’s some renegade Wolfboy, then I’m the mangy stray cat sociopaths try to run over when they think no one is looking.

It’s childish and unfair to feel so resentful of another’s success, but when you’re busy ignoring yet another harassing phone call from the credit card company over a debt I can’t possibly repay on my pitiful benefits, sometimes my thoughts turn to such childish “it’s not fair” feelings.

Failure, you see, is tiring. Every time you look at a shitty sculpture or read a terrible novel, you are looking at something the artist spent days – years even – on. I might think Stephanie Meyer has the talent of a lobotomised ant, but she still wrote a book, got it published and made millions.

Which begs the question of what exactly failure is. I guess for me, it’s buying art supplies on Clearpay or Zip because I can’t pay for them outright. It’s spending hours on a personal piece and getting five likes. It’s staring at the stacks of unwanted pieces in the spare room that my parents would dearly love to chuck out to make room.

Sometimes, failure is just being alive and having nothing show for it. In fact, a lot of the time that’s what I would point to when I think of failure. A fool consuming resources on an overcrowded planet thinking her art – writing, photography, painting, whatever – might have some relevance one day.

But dying is frightening. Dying is hard. And who knows – someone might toss the mangy cat a treat one day.