“True artists kill themselves at their peak to prevent themselves from making bad work.”
Okay. So this. I’m so sick of this. I’m so tired of people thinking that madness is a prerequisite to making good art.
I know too many people who think they have to suffer in order to create. Like, people who will intentionally go out of their way to make themselves uncomfortable, unhappy, or even in pain in order to create better art.
Stop this. Just. No.
In the first place, where is the fucking logic in that? Look. Stop sweating it. The world is already a miserable enough place as it is, and you really don’t have to go out of your way to find suffering. Just wait. It’ll come to you. Chill the fuck out.
Secondly, this idea that art comes from madness or that the two go hand in hand is crap. And even if it wasn’t, YOUR ART IS NOT WORTH IT.
Let me say that again.
YOUR ART IS NOT WORTH YOUR SUFFERING.
If your art makes you uncomfortable, if your art makes you depressed, if your art is compromising your unhappiness in any way at all FUCK YOUR ART.
Good art does come from hard things. I’m not going to argue that. But the two aren’t synonymous, and it’s so fucking dangerous to think that way. More importantly, there are other ways of creating. Throw away this notion that your best work has come out of some of your darkest moments. If that’s what you think your peak is, I have good news.
You haven’t hit it yet.
So if you think you've hit rock bottom, and your sitting on the valley of your life as an artist, here are some things to try before calling it quits:
1. Make shit. Not art.
Let yourself fuck up. Not everything you create is going to be beautiful. But your creativity isn't a well that you can dreg dry. It's bottomless. You'll go through dry spells, but that doesn't mean you're broken. Wait it out. Rain always comes again. And don't fear ineptitude. You're making art, not building a bridge. No one's going to die if you fuck up. Allow yourself to suck.
2. Follow passion, not pain.
If you're living with a mental illness, that shit is not your superpower. You don't have x-ray vision, or an insight into the world that "normies" are lacking. Sorry to rain on your parade, but if mental illness came with cardholder benefits, wouldn't we all be vying for it? You're limiting yourself and your art when you define yourself by the confines of an illness. Choose to focus instead on the things that get you fired up. Choose to define yourself by something other than your art.
3. Try not being an artist.
And by this I don't mean give up on your art completely. But have you ever tried being something other than an artist? What about a stamp collector? A jogger? A small-time ice skater? The miraculous thing about art is how very not mystical it is. It's not a religion, and if you devote yourself to nothing than its practice, turns out you're probably cutting yourself off from a lot of different sources of inspiration. Try drawing from the mundane rather than the maddened. You might save your sanity a couple extra years.
I'm aware that this all comes across as being very salty, and while I have a fair amount of anger towards this perception of art to work through, please know: I'm not angry at you if this is how you feel about your art. For a long time, I too, felt I had peaked at 15.
But please. Please know. You are worth more than your art. You have infinitely more value than anything you could create, and that is beautiful. You will find a way to create and be happy.
Please don't kill yourself over your art.
One of my favorite screenwriters, Max Landis, has a video on this topic, which I'll link to here. I highly recommend. If you need someone to talk about this, or anything, the comments section below is always open.
