Artist fantasy in my head is completely disconnected from reality, and is crumbling
I think I should start by saying my internal landscape has been getting really engulfed into the world of art recently. (For the past year probably). I'm in awe of the magic that is creation, and doing creative things. I spend a lot of my time these days, the past year, watching videos with interviews of artists, watching people talk about their art practice and all that. Sometimes looking at art. This is my main source of satisfaction, not doing the art itself. Living in the world where I am amazing and blow people away and I am famous or whatever, and the art is effortless and pure dopamine. Daydreams.
I really feel like this is the thing I want to do forever. It's a special thing, to dedicate yourself to art. I think I deep down want to be great, and or special.
My primary interest at the moment is photography. I shoot in the nearby town, and take a look around for something interesting.. sometimes.
I think it is important to say that since about the ages of 8 or 9, (hopefully sobering up recently in my late teens) all I would want to do in my free time was browse the internet. Sometimes I would be happy and genuinely interested, a lot of the time I am numbing myself out. This is pretty much happening for several hours a day every day, after school, and especially on weekends. I think in hindsight I had a great lack of social engagement growing up until now due to my lifestyle; I haven't really had a close friend since maybe I was 7, and the extent I was absorbed into the addictive nature of the internet I think had a very negative effect on me.
Yesterday, I decided to see how far I had come, spurred on by a post from an Instagram doomscroll, and I feel this massive drop in my stomach, it's a complete horror. I'm looking through my camera and literally it's mostly empty. And if there's anything there, it's mostly half attempt at a proper composition. Rarely is there something good.
It's a sobering moment to realise I spend all this time, like entire days having fantasises, mental masturbations, just farming good feelings, thinking I'm making progress, but it's not real, browsing the internet of people talking about art, it's straight up depressing, I feel like I just spend entire months not connected to reality of a practice, and I'm desperate if anyone else has a similar feeling. I spend an infinitesimal amount of time making in proportion to jerking myself off (metaphorically). (and if I do make, I fantasise about the act while doing it). I just spend so much time thinking about it, I assumed I would automatically have a body of work??? And shows of improvement???
I'm really at a loss, I need reassurance that I'm not alone with this. I can't even show someone a polished, finished thing, my direction in life is scrambled, I can't even bring myself to do the thing which is supposed to be easy, and not real work. I fear that I don't have what it takes to be "great" at art and make something truly special, at least whatever that means in my romantic warped mind.
I really hope someone else has the same retardation that I have, or can provide some reassurance, because anything I find is not as detailed in expressing the extent of their poor temperament