As I’ve mentioned before, Intention is one of my words for 2014.
The idea is to do things purposefully. It’s about structuring my activities and habits in such a way that I’ll achieve a certain result. I should not be surprised at where I am six months or a year or five years from now.
Intention is very important for the artist, especially if said artist wants to thrive and have a long career.
There are a lot of artists who make a big splash and then fizzle out, burning out in a blaze of glory. It sounds romantic, but it’s sad, hopeless, and pathetic.
Living fast vs. living intentionally
This is most visible in the movie and rock-and-roll industry, where the “27 Club” has a certain level of notoriety and a promise of posthumous fame. You’ve heard of superstar actors and musicians who died at the young age of 27. They accomplishmed a lot in a short time, living by the motto, “live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.” The most notable examples off the top of my head are Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and most recently, Amy Winehouse. It’s probably a combination of pressure to perform, fame, boredom, an addiction to drugs or alcohol, not to mention adrenaline, and depression. Sometimes it’s suicide, but more often it is overdose or reckless behavior.
If you want a long career, you have to be intentional about it. You can’t just do the first thing that pops into your head and give it up when it gets hard. You have to be disciplined. Seek to do more than just create entertainment. Create something with a long vision, something for the generations after you. I’ve said it before: there IS a place for entertainment, but entertainment almost never achieves “high art” status. Entertainment often appeals to the lowest common denominator. No wonder comedies often resort to crude, cheap laughs. No wonder high art rewards the patient viewer.
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy
That’s not to say you should only work hard and never have any fun. Ecclesiastes 2:24 says it is good for man to eat good food, drink good wine, and enjoy the fruit of your hard work. And often, good food and drink are considered entertainment, since they go beyond basic bread and water. So there’s a place for it.
The problem is that in today’s world, we live for instant gratification. I can pull up a movie or a funny cat video on the mobile phone in my pocket. Social media has made us shallow. Lots of breadth, but no depth. It doesn’t have a long memory.
Artists are just as susceptible to this impulse as anyone else, maybe more susceptible. We want instant success. We want to be the next Damien Hirst or whoever the latest rock star artist is, and we want it to happen overnight.
The irony is that if we as artists want to be remembered, we have to be okay with being unknown now, working for something that you may never see come to bear fruit. It’s a lot like planting a tree. If I plant a tree now, I may not see it produce any fruit, but my children and their children will.