“I’d love to, but you see ... I have these crippling fears ...”
can get us a lot of attention. We get more sympathy as
crippled artists than as functional ones. Those of us addicted
to sympathy in the place of creativity can become
increasingly threatened as we become increasingly
functional. Many recovering artists become so threatened
that they make U-turns and sabotage themselves.
We usually commit creative hara-kiri either on the eve of
or in the wake of a first creative victory. The glare of
success (a poem, an acting job, a song, a short story, a film,
or any success) can send the recovering artist scurrying
back into the cave of self-defeat. We’re more comfortable
being a victim of artist’s block than risking having to
consistently be productive and healthy.
An artistic U-turn arrives on a sudden wave of
indifference. We greet our newly minted product or our
delightful process with “Aw, what does it matter anyhow?
It’s just a start. Everybody else is so much further ahead....”
Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives
him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.
STENDHALYes, and they will stay that way if we stop working. The
point is we have traveled light-years from where we were
when we were blocked. We are now on the road, and the