Nobody with sense actually wants to suffer for their art

questions of purpose

a photo I took of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s grave, which is in the middle of a noisy suburban traffic triangle — even posthumously, this guy can’t catch a break.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine, a poet. And we were talking about this other person we know, this other poet. As a rule, I hate to gossip — but occasionally, I love to gossip. And I’m only okay with it because I’ve learned that occasionally, I’m gossiped about.

Anyway, my friend the poet and I were talking about this other poet who we really admire. They’re awful as a person, this third poet, but they’re also probably brilliant. And we both agreed on that, but then I said something like, “but they’re so unhappy. They write wonderful poetry and they get published everywhere and win all these prizes but they have to drink and drug themselves silly through the rest of the day.” And we wanted to shake our heads in bereavement, but we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to it. Because there’s that old superstition about artists suffering for their art.

I hate the word artists. It sounds pretentious.¹ But the notion of suffering for your art is well-founded. At least, the best artists seem to suffer for it, don’t they? Did Socrates kill himself? Didn’t Shakespeare die of a hangover? And Hemingway, how’d that turn out for him? Or Dylan Thomas, Van Gogh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Kerouac and Poe and even Dorothy Parker, who died at 73, was unhappy for pretty much her whole life.

But really, who has the time? There’s nothing wrong with drinking or smoking yourself to death, it’s your right as an American citizen. But who’s got the energy for it while simultaneously chasing art? And also — this is a digression — but how was it done?

In Shielah Graham’s memoir of F. Scott Fitzgerald, she estimates that he read ten thousand books. And she’s probably right. He probably did. But he was also drinking thirty bottles of beer a day. How?! I’ve read Hemingway’s letters. He was reading two or three books a week.² And he was drinking a bottle of scotch and two bottles of wine a day. How?!

The question at hand — not the question of how do you do it, but the larger question of why do it? — leads itself into another question. Because the question of ‘why do it?’ is easily answered: you do it for the art. But is it worth it? And furthermore, would these suffering artists, have been as successful if they’d sobered up?³

I love all the artists listed. And wouldn’t we all — whether you’re Virginia Woolf, Amy Winehouse or a contestant on Is It Cake — love to be celebrated for our art? But is it worth it to walk the shoes of people like Taylor Swift?⁴