Skip to main content

Fearlessly Honest

There is a pretty common myth out there about being creative and being messed up, in that it seems that we create better art if we are wrecked.  

In a way, the myth isn't a myth at all.  We do seem to create good stuff when we are messed up, when we are flayed open and ruined, when the world is a weight and there's nothing to do but crawl into a bottle, to hide behind chemical curtains until things don't hurt anymore. 

We do create good stuff when were messed up.  You can see it in the wreckage that Hollywood serves up, sacrificed for our entertainment, in the suicides and broken homes and arrests of creators.  Brilliant art made by complete and utter ruin, human beings tortured by talent and psychological disaster. 

But it's not about being smashed; it is about honesty.

The greatest, most heart-wrenching things we read and hear and watch come from someone who is just messed up enough to be honest, who is brave enough to just lay it out there for the whole world to see.  But it doesn't come from the thing, it doesn't come from the ruin.  It is good because the creators weren't afraid to be real, to expose themselves, to be hurt and to say honestly that they were hurt.  It's just that for some of us it seems harder to be honest when we're present in our bodies and our psyche, maybe we need a little chemical courage to be open.         

You don't need to be messed up to be honest, you have to simply be brave.  And with some guts, with a strong backbone and thick skin, with a little faith and an unshakable belief in your content, you don't need to be a wreck to make good stuff, you just have to have the balls to be honest.

It's easier when you get older, I think.  I'm married; I dont have to worry about some potential mate reading something I wrote and thinking I'm a tool.  My wife already knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that I'm a tool.  She married me knowing it, and God bless her heart, she has stuck around this long, I doubt that anything I write is going to change her mind. 

And to be honest, maybe adult truths are less exciting than young truths.  I don't consider myself a wreck, not anymore at least.  I live a reasonably peaceful life and my truth has changed.  My truth now is I mostly don't miss the firey passion that drove me when I was young, that led me to do such harmful and willfully stupid things.  I don't miss the fire, and I definately don't miss the ashes, the guilt and regret and the exhausting uncertainty. 

Sometimes though, I do miss the fearlessness, the easy honesty.

Because the best art comes from fearless artists.

           

Comments

  1. When you're to much of a wreck you can't create. I believe that you not only have to be honest but you have to feel deeply. Put your heart out there when it' hard to do. To care so much that it hurts. I know this is part of what you are talking about. It does bring to mind, Robin Williams. The more I learn of this man the more I like him. I've watched close friends just crushed and saying things liike "Why?". So sad.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats on finishing your book and getting your blog started! I'm not a fan of combining writing with altered states, because I don't think we really do our best work that way. We only feel as if it's great work when we're hiding behind the "chemical curtain." Write first and celebrate afterward. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for coming to check out my blog; and for taking time to comment on it. I have two agent queries still pending. I'll let you know how it goes!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dance of the Sand Hill Crane

 It is Saturday morning in Feburary and here in Michigan it is clear and cold.  The sun has risen a while ago but there are still streaks of red in the sky, lighting up the clouds, high and wispy.  I am standing by my car after completing some chore, cleaning something or retrieving something and I am slow breathing, trying to calm my heart. It has been a difficult week. My son has a fight tonight, full contact MMA, his first, and I am full of conflict and anxiety about it. Not because I don't believe he will do well, because I know he is as prepared as anyone can be for such a thing, but because I am a father and I feel like I should be protecting him from the violence of the world. Even though he turns nineteen in a few weeks and is stronger both physically and mentally than I could ever hope to be, he is still my boy, and I am scared for him. My other son is fifteen and this week was embroiled in some stupid conflict at school, a misunderstanding that had led to meetings with th

One of the Best of Us

In the stifling heat my breath comes fast and heavy. What the fuck am I even doing here? What the fuck am I trying to accomplish? I'm sitting on the mat, maybe dying, a forty something dad playacting at being a fighter. This is my mid-life crisis, this is so, so stupid. This has to be the end for me, assuming I can get my heartbeat under control, assuming I don't just peg out here on the mat.  I can't do this anymore. "It's okay man, it's okay, you just need to breathe through it. You're fine, you're okay." The voice of my training partner, gentle and kind. My partner, the maniac that drove me to such a state, that I think I might die, he sits next to me and shows me how to breathe, how to calm my body. He teaches and guides me through it, and in a few minutes I actually am okay, the panic settles down, and maybe this isn't my last class after all. "You're alright?  Okay. Now lets get back to work."  And back to work we go. There

A Soap Bubble Nothing

I built a table, out of wood.  I made a thing that wasn't there before.  I cut and sanded the wood, I drilled in screws, and now we have a table where we didn't have one before. It is real and solid and you can touch it, you can feel where I cut poorly, see the rough edges where I didn't join the wood correctly, you can lift it, feel its weight.  It is a real thing that I made.  I made a table. This is not a table, this is a nothing, a series of random thoughts that I had in the shower, which is where thoughts come from. What if our souls are soap bubbles, what if we spread ourselves too thin, stretched out and flattened? What happens when it pops, would you even notice, would you even care? What if we are meant for something more? I am already behind schedule this year I've got work to do, I have things to accomplish, friends ask me questions ask for favors and all I say is yes yes yes and- What is this?  What am I hoping to do here writhing I meant to write "writ