Birds, Words, & Inspiration

Misery Business

 I haven't exactly lived a conventional life. Privileged, yes, but not within the conventions of a white middle class female from an American family. Yet, breaking conventions is one of the privileges of my good fortune of birth. So I've taken advantage of it to my fullest ability and with no regrets --minus the occasional dinner party with strangers.

There is always of a round of obligatory small talk with a stranger that tallies age, marriage, children and it predictably ends in a hard pause. This screeching halt to silence happens when the questioner discovers that I am 45 years old, have never been married (or even close for that matter) and have no children. My interviewer then eyes me like I'm a unicorn, or more likely a manticore, and then they ask their next question cautiously.

"And what do you do for living?"

Deep breath. Sip wine. Another deep breath. "I'm a writer."

This is when their face relaxes with infuriating relief. She's a writer. No worries. Nothing is broken in the world. She's just in the misery business.

"Yes, yes. I'm a writer."

Except that, I'm not tortured. I'm not sacrificing relationships. My choices haven't been admirable or pitiful. They were simply mine and they have nothing to do with my art.

I don't know who created this mythology of the tortured artist that we've all come to believe in. (Including and most especially artists, sadly.) But I'm pretty sure that it wasn't the masters of writing, painting, sculpting, and composing of our past. I'm actually fairly confident that it was those who don't create who spun this story.

Misery business is a tale people tell themselves while they lie in bed at night and worry over why their own art lies vaulted away in their chest far away from their fingers and throat. They comfort themselves by whispering, "I could be an artist, but I'd rather be happy."

And as comforting justification often does, this way of thinking long ago went viral. Shamefully, artists took up the mystique of pain and they ran with it as well. Oscar Wilde called the artistic existence "one long, lovely suicide."

Well, guess what, Wilde? We're all slowly killing ourselves just living. We can't decide not to die, but we can we decide to live despite the inevitable. We can, in fact, decide to live larger and make art. In fact, I choose to seek happiness. I choose to make art whether I'm miserable or deliriously happy.

Sometimes my art is really bad. Sometimes it's amazing. Misery doesn't seem to make a difference. I don't have to lie in the gutter to stare at the stars. So, suck it, Wilde.

Elizabeth Gilbert says in Big Magic: "Trusting in nothing but suffering is a dangerous path... Suffering has a reputation for killing off artists, for one thing. But even when it doesn't kill them, an addiction to pain can sometimes throw artists into such a severe mental disorder that they stop working at all."

So what's the benefit to generating a sorrowful existence in the hopes of artistic excellence?

It is true that misery is an element on the table of emotions that writers explore when they spelunk into the soul, searching for expected gems. But it is only one cavern in an infinite cave. We all have incidents in our lives that create chasms of great despair. These places are as important to find our footing in as any other where we crash land. Yet every time I fall into a dark pit, someone inevitable says to me (as if it's a comfort), think of how much more you'll have to write about. 

You know what? I could actually spin some pretty amazing prose about winning eight million dollars in the lottery. So suck it, Wannabe-Wilde.

Art is born of existence and it amplifies happiness, even when we are writing about our sadness. Our business isn't misery. Our business is wholly living. Our business is art.

xxR