life is suffering, art doesn't have to be
"I believe that enjoying your work with all your heart is the only truly subversive position left to take as a creative person"
- Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
Tom Petty said that the waiting is the hardest part, but the Buddha said that life is. According to the Buddha existence is a dumpster-fire, marshmallow roast. Whether you're the stick or the Stay-Puft, you're getting burned.
Perhaps I'm paraphrasing. He may have said it differently. I think Dukkha, or suffering, was the word the Buddha used, but I'd like to think I'm capturing the essence of the original Pali.
If being alive is difficult, it follows that so is creativity. Art is hard. Making isn't easy. Few things make an artist wish they had never been born more than the failures and false starts that come with creating things. Some days the words won't come. The paint won't pour. The pictures won't appear. The center cannot hold. And when it won't, neither can you.
We talk about the discipline and the rigor. We make it austere and puritanical. We work with an ascetic's zealotry. All self-sacrifice and martyrdom. But, we forget that there is one thing behind all of that. One thing underneath all the repetitions, the callouses and the blisters. One thing beneath all the monotony, penance, and grave rituals. Beneath all the frustration, dissatisfaction, and disappointment. The one thing that makes art so rebellious. The reason that creativity is raucous and unruly. The thing that makes it worth it. The reason that we do it all in the first place. The reason that, no matter what, we return to it again and again.
We love it.
That’s it. that’s all of it. All there is, and all it needs to be.
Sometimes we forget that it's jubilant and exhilarating. That when it's clicking, when it's happening, when it's all falling into place. It's enlivening. It's enlightening. It's the closest to nirvana we've ever been.
What would it look like to really embrace that fact, to make create space for it? For practicing pure creative joy? To make things just because it's fun to do. Just because we want to. Just because it's the kinds of things we want to exist in the world. Because we can. Because we dare someone to tell us not to. What if the few hours given to your craft are dedicated not only to deep work, but, to deep play? Because that's what makes being alive more livable.
Even if the Buddha is right, even if life is suffering, art doesn't have to be.
P.S. Day 87-89
P.P.S - Last Saturday I went to House of Shadow in Tampa, Florida for the Paint It Black Art Exhibit that featured three of my collages. It was a lovely space and a pleasure to be included.
I've seen some monks translate it as 'There is suffering' with the implication that it's inevitable or unavoidable, that we will all suffer to some extent if we're alive. He also said that there is a way out of suffering: the Noble Eightfold Path. It doesn't include art. It doesn't exactly preclude art, though the Buddha himself wasn't into it.
What I haven't been able to fully reconcile for myself is why the Buddha didn't really like games or art. I understand how they can be distracting and take you away from the path to enlightenment and all that, sure. But art has literally saved my life. I mean, to be fair, it's also almost killed me, but. Anyway. I have no answers or real insight. Just musings. Not every day I see a piece even mention Buddhism, so. Here we are!
Congrats on the show Duane! I like what you are writing, Here is a little chunk of what I am writing in my article this morning watch for it later:
"The arts require deep, penetrating vision and rigorous effort over long periods of time. This requires the development of strong concentration and the ability to contemplate deeply and to eventually quiet the mind enough to achieve a meditative state which opens the way to creativity.
This does not mean that the artist needs to be sitting around in a cross legged position all day. It just means to be able to work without distraction, be able to focus the mind, be unperturbed and sufficiently quiet to forget about yourself long enough for creativity to flow through you when you work. This is a skill and a discipline that must be developed and cultivated."