Create Dangerously: Forge Yourself a Combat-Ready Purpose
A killer "why" is your best defense against laziness & mediocrity.
“My job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” - Mark Twain
Being a rebel without a cause can only take you so far.
And even if you are committed to a cause, does it have enough calcium in its bones to carry you through the trenches on the battlefield of the Artist’s Life? Does your cause have enough meat to sustain you on those days when your hunt for inspiration brings back nothing?
Too many artists create solely for money and fame - they might achieve what they want, but they’ll hardly be remembered when theaters no longer show their movies, radio stations no longer play their songs, bookstores no longer carry their novels.
And then there are artists who are stuck in the Romantic tradition, the “art for art’s sake” crowd who laze around waxing poetic on the virtues of forging something that will never be seen, heard, or experienced.
Let these losers build their creative careers around dull, flimsy causes that are as strong and rigid as an old man’s penis.
We’ll fashion our goals into fine points and buttress them with steel girders, standing tall and angry against the storms of the mundane. They’ll be our personal monuments to that wonderful madness of man, and our perfect WMDs to drop on the enemies of originality.
Why Defining Your Purpose is Dangerous
Money and self-gratification ain’t bad goals, but they ain’t enough fuel for those who want to break the future and replace it with something better. Fortune and happiness are things that almost everyone chases in almost every career - there’s nothing special about someone who cares only about being the flavor of the month.
And look, there’s nothing wrong with artists who create for themselves, who view the creative process as a fun diversion rather than a lifestyle.
But where’s the impact of avoiding a spot in posterity just to keep today’s gratification fulfilled?
If anything, having a real goal or ideal to strive towards makes you more rebellious, because it’s a declaration of war on those who make material objects mere satisfaction their primary reasons for creating. That’s a lot of people you’ve just made your enemies, but what the hell? “There’s no peace for an artist, except for the peace found in the heat of battle”, right?
Stray from the pack and strive for something greater and crazier.
How to Define Your Purpose
Identify what you think is wrong with your field and make it your goal to provide a better way
Every industry, genre, discipline, and medium has its share of cliches that most creators are too lazy to address. In fact, most of them probably do their part to keep these cliches healthy and relevant by giving them plenty of exercise and attention.
DON’T BE LIKE THESE FUCKERS.
Giving these tired trends the finger while forging your own way of doing things is a mighty goal for any artist, and is one that will make you a threat to banality.
Define the ideas and themes you’re most interested in, and make them part of your style
You’ve read the books of your favorite novelists, watched the movies of your favorite filmmakers, studied the jokes of your favorite comedians. By now, you should have enough material to have a strong sense of your style.
Don’t be afraid to label the sensibility of your works; doing so will help you to focus your energy and attention into something that stands out from the crowd of faceless, replaceable, interchangeable artists whose aspirations are always at sea level.
Specify the effect you want your work to have on your audience
How many times has a work failed to stir anything up in you? Whether it was a generic Hollywood potboiler or a novel whose ending you could see a mile away or a pop song with superficial lyrics, chances are you’ve encountered plenty of examples of art that didn’t stick with you.
Art is about emotion made flesh. It’s about articulating what normal forms of human interaction can’t. Take advantage of the power your ingenuity gives you and set out to give your audience a real experience.
Like your madness, shout your purpose from the rooftops.
People will think you’re arrogant, drunk on the moonshine dreams you’ve distilled in the backwoods of your mind.
Good.
Let them doubt.
Their disbelief has just the right amount of octane to ignite you into rowdy creation.
Remember: most people would simply climb the mountain and pat themselves on the back. But for people like us, we use the top of the mountain as a launchpad to get us to even greater heights.
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