“You’re going to be afraid if you don’t write and afraid when you do write, so you may as well write and be afraid,” says a friend as we—she and her husband and their two young children and I—sit at the dinner table in their rented house after eating Thai takeout and it comes up: the absurdity of art, creativity, trying to make something; how crazy and obsessive-compulsive you sometimes feel. (You might have to be at least a little crazy to create.)
For my friend (like many of us), it’s all or nothing. “I can’t just take an hour to paint. It’s like putting meth on the table and saying, ‘Just take a little.’ That’s not how it works.” Why do we put ourselves through the affliction? Why do we choose the tribulation of creation?
“I’m in the weeds,” I say. “You tell your family and a few friends that you’re writing a book. If only they could see what it’s really like.”
“It’s wallowing,” she says.
It is. A kind of self-inflicted suffering. Misery and heartache. And, still, you can’t help but do it; you have no choice. Of course I’m being melodramatic, exaggerating to make a point. But I get home that night and unload groceries and I’m exhausted and it’s 10:48 p.m. and I write. Why? Obsession? Compulsion? To make myself feel better or productive? Maybe. But it’s more. There is no incentive except for love, and some inherent need.
You lose track of time, of your surroundings. Breath and heart rate slow, the mind settles and clears. The rest of the world falls away. When you create, you are most yourself.
If someday you try to share what you make with the world, here’s the dread of it: if it’s awful, then everyone will know it. You give everything for and to it and, ultimately, it might all be worthless, shit. What else can you do but accept the risk when you can’t help but create?
You’re terrified and you do it anyway. You pan for gold. It’s dirt, and dirt, and more dirt. Days and days of your life (or years) given to a task with no guarantee of reward or return. Then, a flake of gold! There is never the rare flake or, God-willing, the impossible nugget except for the countless, mundane hours of panning, just as it was for the hopeful forty-niners who rushed to California with empty pockets and wild dreams. Desperate? Delusional? So be it. If that’s what it takes. You pour out your whole heart and then some and you may have nothing to show for it. So be it. You can’t help it.
You are miserable when you do it and miserable if you don’t. Easy choice. You may as well be miserable and do it.
If you do, I bet you’ll at least feel a little less crazy about feeling crazy as you try to make something meaningful.
