The Fat Kids Workshop was productive and inspiring and fun. It was a safe place in which to be creative and vulnerable and exploratory—and it was completely and totally free. (Except for the pizza, yes, of course. But, come on! You see what I’m getting at, right? You can do this stuff yourself, people!)
Werner Herzog Chimes In
I have a friend in Italy who’s an independent filmmaker. Many years ago, back when he was an angry young man, he wrote a letter to his hero, the great German director Werner Herzog. My friend poured out his heart in this letter, complaining to Herzog about how badly his career was going, how nobody liked his movies, how difficult it had become to make films in a world where nobody cares, where everything is so expensive, where there is no funding for the arts, where public tastes have run to the vulgar and the commercial . . .
If he’d been looking for sympathy, however, my friend had gone to the wrong place. (Although why anyone would turn to Werner Herzog, of all people, for a warm shoulder to cry on is beyond me.) Anyhow, Herzog wrote my friend a long reply of ferocious challenge, in which he said, more or less, this:
“Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you must, but stop whining and get back to work.”
(In this story, I’ve just realized, Werner Herzog was essentially playing the role of my mother. How wonderful!)
My friend framed the letter and hung it over his desk, as well he should have. Because while Herzog’s admonition might seem like a rebuke, it wasn’t; it was an attempt at liberation. I think it’s a mighty act of human love to remind somebody that they can accomplish things by themselves, and that the world does not automatically owe them any reward, and that they are not as weak and hobbled as they may believe.
Such reminders can seem blunt, and often we don’t want to hear them, but there is a simple question of self-respect at play here. There is something magnificent about encouraging someone to step forward into his own self-respect at last—especially when it comes to creating something brave and new.
That letter, in other words?
It was my friend’s permission slip.
He got back to work.
A Trick
So, yeah—here’s a trick: Stop complaining.
Trust me on this. Trust Werner Herzog on this, too.
There are so many good reasons to stop complaining if you want to live a more creative life.
First of all, it’s annoying. Every artist complains, so it’s a dead and boring topic. (From the volume of complaints that emerges from the professional creative class, you would think these people had been sentenced to their vocations by an evil dictator, rather than having chosen their work with a free will and an open heart.)
Second, of course it’s difficult to create things; if it wasn’t difficult, everyone would be doing it, and it wouldn’t be special or interesting.
Third, nobody ever really listens to anybody else’s complaints, anyhow, because we’re all too focused on our own holy struggle, so basically you’re just talking to a brick wall.
Fourth, and most important, you’re scaring away inspiration. Every time you express a complaint about how difficult and tiresome it is to be creative, inspiration takes another step away from you, offended. It’s almost like inspiration puts up its hands and says, “Hey, sorry, buddy! I didn’t realize my presence was such a drag. I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
I have felt this phenomenon in my own life, whenever I start complaining. I have felt the way my self-pity slams the door on inspiration, making the room feel suddenly cold, small, and empty. That being the case, I took this path as a young person: I started telling myself that I enjoyed my work. I proclaimed that I enjoyed every single aspect of my creative endeavors—the agony and the ecstasy, the success and the failure, the joy and the embarrassment, the dry spells and the grind and the stumble and the confusion and the stupidity of it all.
I even dared to say this aloud.
I told the universe (and anyone who would listen) that I was committed to living a creative life not in order to save the world, not as an act of protest, not to become famous, not to gain entrance to the canon, not to challenge the system, not to show the bastards, not to prove to my family that I was worthy, not as a form of deep therapeutic emotional catharsis . . . but simply because I liked it.
So try saying this: “I enjoy my creativity.”
And when you say it, be sure to actually mean it.
For one thing, it will freak people out. I believe that enjoying your work with all your heart is the only truly subversive position left to take as a creative person these days. It’s such a gangster move, because hardly anybody ever dares to speak of creative enjoyment aloud, for fear of not being taken seriously as an artist. So say it. Be the weirdo who dares to enjoy.
Best of all, though, by saying that you delight in your work, you will draw inspiration near. Inspiration will be grateful to hear those words coming out of your mouth, because inspiration—like all of us—appreciates being appreciated. Inspiration will overhear your pleasure, and it will send ideas to your door as a reward for your enthusiasm and your loyalty.
More ideas than you could ever use.
Enough ideas for ten lifetimes.
Pigeonholing
Somebody said to me the other day, “You claim that we can all be creative, but aren’t there huge differences between people’s innate talents and abilities? Sure, we can all make some kind of art, but only a few of us can be great, right?”
I don’t know.
Honestly, you guys, I don’t even really care.
I cannot even be bothered to think about the difference between high art and low art. I will fall asleep with my face in my dinner plate if someone starts discoursing to me about the academic distinction between true mastery and mere craft. I certainly don’t ever want to confidently announce that this person is destined to become an important artist, while that person should give it up.
How do I know? How does anyone know? It’s all so wildly subjective, and, anyhow, life has surprised me too many times in this realm. On one hand, I’ve known brilliant people who created absolutely nothing from their talents. On the other hand, there are people whom I once arrogantly dismissed who later staggered me with the gravity and beauty of their work. It has all humbled me far beyond the ability to judge anyone’s potential, or to rule anybody out.
I beg you not to worry about such definitions and distinctions, then, okay? It will only weigh you down and trouble your mind, and we need you to stay as light and unburdened as possible in order to keep you creating. Whether you think you’re brilliant or you think you’re a loser, just make whatever you need to make and toss it out there. Let other people pigeonhole you however they need to. And pigeonhole you they shall, because that’s what people like to do. Actually, pigeonholing is something people need to do in order to feel that they have set the chaos of existence into some kind of reassuring order.
Thus, people will stick you into all sorts of boxes. They’ll call you a genius, or a fraud, or an amateur, or a pretender, or a wannabe, or a has-been, or a hobbyist, or an also-ran, or a rising star, or a master of reinvention. They may say flattering things about you, or they may say dismissive things about you. They may call you a mere genre novelist, or a mere children’s book illustrator, or a mere commercial photographer, or a mere community theater actor, or a mere home cook, or a mere weekend musician, or a mere crafter, or a mere landscape painter, or a mere whatever.
It doesn’t matter in the least. Let people have their opinions. More than that—let people be in love with their opinions, just as you and I are in love with ours. But never delude yourself into believing that you require someone else’s blessing
(or even their comprehension) in order to make your own creative work. And always remember that people’s judgments about you are none of your business.
Lastly, remember what W. C. Fields had to say on this point: “It ain’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to.”
Actually, don’t even bother answering.
Just keep doing your thing.
Fun House Mirrors
I once wrote a book that accidentally became a giant best seller, and for a few years there, it was like I was living in a hall of fun house mirrors.
It was never my intention to write a giant best seller, believe me. I wouldn’t know how to write a giant best seller if I tried. (Case in point: I’ve published six books—all written with equal passion and effort—and five of them were decidedly not giant best sellers.)
I certainly did not feel, as I was writing Eat Pray Love, that I was producing the greatest or most important work of my life. I knew only that it was a departure for me to write something so personal, and I figured people might mock it for being so terribly earnest. But I wrote that book anyhow, because I needed to write it for my own intimate purposes—and also because I was curious to see if I could convey my emotional experiences adequately on paper. It never occurred to me that my own thoughts and feelings might intersect so intensely with the thoughts and feelings of so many other people.
I’ll tell you how oblivious I was during the writing of that book. During the course of my Eat Pray Love travels, I fell in love with that Brazilian man named Felipe, to whom I am now married, and at one point—shortly into our courtship—I asked him if he felt comfortable with my writing about him in my memoir. He said, “Well, it depends. What’s at stake?”
I replied, “Nothing. Trust me—nobody reads my books.”
Over twelve million people ended up reading that book.
And because so many people read it, and because so many people disagreed over it, somewhere along the way Eat Pray Love stopped being a book, per se, and it became something else—a huge screen upon which millions of people projected their most intense emotions. These emotions ranged from absolute hatred to blind adulation. I got letters saying, I detest everything about you, and I got letters saying, You have written my bible.
Imagine if I’d tried to create a definition of myself based on any of these reactions. I didn’t try. And that’s the only reason Eat Pray Love didn’t throw me off my path as a writer—because of my deep and lifelong conviction that the results of my work don’t have much to do with me. I can only be in charge of producing the work itself. That’s a hard enough job. I refuse to take on additional jobs, such as trying to police what anybody thinks about my work once it leaves my desk.
Also, I realized that it would be unreasonable and immature of me to expect that I should be allowed to have a voice of expression, but other people should not. If I am allowed to speak my inner truth, then my critics are allowed to speak their inner truths, as well. Fair’s fair. If you dare to create something and put it out there, after all, then it may accidentally stir up a response. That’s the natural order of life: the eternal inhale and exhale of action and reaction. But you are definitely not in charge of the reaction—even when that reaction is flat-out bizarre.
One day, for instance, a woman came up to me at a book signing and said, “Eat Pray Love changed my life. You inspired me to leave my abusive marriage and set myself free. It was all because of that one moment in your book—that moment when you describe putting a restraining order on your ex-husband because you’d had enough of his violence and you weren’t going to tolerate it anymore.”
A restraining order? Violence?
That never happened! Not in my book, nor in my actual life! You can’t even read that narrative between the lines of my memoir, because it’s so far from the truth. But that woman had subconsciously inserted that story—her own story—into my memoir, because, I suppose, she needed to. (It may have been easier for her, somehow, to believe that her burst of resolve and strength had come from me and not from herself.) Whatever her emotional motive, though, she had embroidered herself into my story and erased my actual narrative in the process. Strange as it seems, I submit that it was her absolute right to do this. I submit that this woman has the God-given right to misread my book however she wants to misread it. Once my book entered her hands, after all, everything about it belonged to her, and never again to me.
Recognizing this reality—that the reaction doesn’t belong to you—is the only sane way to create. If people enjoy what you’ve created, terrific. If people ignore what you’ve created, too bad. If people misunderstand what you’ve created, don’t sweat it. And what if people absolutely hate what you’ve created? What if people attack you with savage vitriol, and insult your intelligence, and malign your motives, and drag your good name through the mud?
Just smile sweetly and suggest—as politely as you possibly can—that they go make their own fucking art.
Then stubbornly continue making yours.
We Were Just a Band
Because, in the end, it really doesn’t matter that much.
Because, in the end, it’s just creativity.
Or, as John Lennon once said about the Beatles, “We were just a band!”
Please don’t get me wrong: I adore creativity. (And of course I revere the Beatles.) I have dedicated my entire life to the pursuit of creativity, and I spend a lot of time encouraging other people to do the same, because I think a creative life is the most marvelous life there is.
Yes, some of my most transcendent moments have been during episodes of inspiration, or when I’m experiencing the magnificent creations of others. And, yes, I absolutely do believe that our artistic instincts have divine and magical origins, but that doesn’t mean we have to take it all so seriously, because—in the final analysis—I still perceive that human artistic expression is blessedly, refreshingly nonessential.
That’s exactly why I love it so much.
Radiation Canaries
Do you think I’m wrong? Are you one of those people who believe that the arts are the most serious and important thing in the world?
If so, my friend, then you and I must part ways right here.
I offer up my own life as irrefutable evidence that the arts don’t matter as much as we sometimes trick ourselves into believing they do. Because let’s be honest: You would be hard-pressed to identify a job that is not objectively more valuable to society than mine. Name a profession, any profession: teacher, doctor, fireman, custodian, roofer, rancher, security guard, political lobbyist, sex worker, even the ever-meaningless “consultant”—each is infinitely more essential to the smooth maintenance of the human community than any novelist ever was, or ever will be.
There was once a terrific exchange on the TV show 30 Rock that distilled this idea down to its irreducible nucleus. Jack Donaghy was mocking Liz Lemon for her utter uselessness to society as a mere writer, while she tried to defend her fundamental social importance.
Jack: “In a postapocalyptic world, how would society even use you?”
Liz: “Traveling bard!”
Jack, in disgust: “Radiation canary.”
I think Jack Donaghy was right, but I do not find this truth to be dispiriting. On the contrary, I find it thrilling. The fact that I get to spend my life making objectively useless things means that I don’t live in a postapocalyptic dystopia. It means I am not exclusively chained to the grind of mere survival. It means we still have enough space left in our civilization for the luxuries of imagination and beauty and emotion—and even total frivolousness.
Pure creativity is magnificent expressly because it is the opposite of everything else in life that’s essential or inescapable (food, shelter, medicine, rule of law, social order, community and familial responsibility, sickness, loss, death, taxes, etc.). Pure creativity is something better than a necessity; it’s a gift. It’s t
he frosting. Our creativity is a wild and unexpected bonus from the universe. It’s as if all our gods and angels gathered together and said, “It’s tough down there as a human being, we know. Here—have some delights.”
It doesn’t discourage me in the least, in other words, to know that my life’s work is arguably useless.
All it does is make me want to play.
High Stakes vs. Low Stakes
Of course, it must be said there are dark and evil places in the world where people’s creativity cannot simply stem from a sense of play and where personal expression has huge and serious repercussions.
If you happen to be a dissident journalist suffering in jail in Nigeria, or a radical filmmaker under house arrest in Iran, or an oppressed young female poet struggling to be heard in Afghanistan, or pretty much anybody in North Korea, then it is the case that your creative expression comes with extreme life-or-death stakes. There are people out there who bravely and stubbornly continue to make art despite living under god-awful totalitarian regimes, and those people are heroes, and we should all bow down to them.
But let’s be honest with ourselves here: That ain’t most of us.
In the safe world in which you and I most likely live, the stakes of our creative expression are low. Almost comically low. For instance: If a publisher dislikes my book, they may not publish my book, and that will make me sad, but nobody’s going to come to my home and shoot me over it. Likewise, nobody ever died because I got a bad review in the New York Times. The polar ice caps will not melt any faster or slower because I couldn’t figure out how to write a convincing ending to my novel.
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