Don't Like - Having To Suffer To Make Good Art

One of the worst ideas in creative culture is that you have to suffer to make good art. This idea can be interpreted in a couple of ways, both of which are bad. The first is that you have to have bad things happen to you to understand the human condition and the second is that the process of making art has to be hard. Both of these ideas suck. The first is bad because it idealizes oppressive social and personal states in the pursuit of making of good art. Good art is routinely made in the face of adversity and it’s very inspiring when good art is made against the odds, but it’s not as though all art made in the face of adversity is good. Likewise, there’s lots of good art made with lots of generous support. Plenty of great films, books, albums, sculptures, paintings, and other kinds of art have been made by people who’ve lived and/or are living pretty good lives. There’s no reason to list them, however, because then it all comes down to mutual appreciation of art, which is never guaranteed. On the process front, making art can be frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be fun, it can be fast. There’s nothing more energizing than feeling inspired, hitting your stride, making everything incredibly quickly, and releasing into the world. Could you have changed something? Of course, there’s always something that could’ve been done different. But there’s a fine line between being meticulous and being ridiculous—and it’s good to ask yourself which side you’re on…