HOW TO BE MISERABLE
I
n my younger days dodging the draft, I somehow wound
up in the Marine Corps. There's a myth that Marine
training turns baby-faced recruits into bloodthirsty killers.
Trust me, the Marine Corps is not that efficient. What it does
teach, however, is a lot more useful.
The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable.
This is invaluable for an artist.
Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse
satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and
higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swab
jockeys, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because
these candy-asses don't know how to be miserable.
The artist committing himself to his calling has vol-
unteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be
dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection,
self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.
The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to
be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take
pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or
jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.68 THE WAR OF ART