The artistic life

I read The Writing Life by Annie Dillard a while ago. I dog-eared a particularly poignant passage thinking it applies equally well to other art forms as it does to writing. When I googled the passage I found that the beginning is often quoted, but that the quoters usually trail off before the end of the first paragraph. Which is a shame because the second provides a counterpoint that contrasts profoundly with the first. Without it her observations are unbalanced.

I guess the reluctance to include the second paragraph is understandable. The beginning has a sunny attitude, while the end becomes a bit nihilistic. Art, like life, isn’t always sunny. I can relate to both moods. In the first version below I’ve taken liberties with her text to generalize it. Her original version follows that in case you want to see how little I had to alter.

"Creating a work of art is interesting and exhilarating. It is sufficiently difficult and complex that it engages all your intelligence. It is life at its most free. Your freedom as an artist is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild abandon; you may not let rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself. In the democracies, you may even express anything you please about any governments or institutions, even if it is demonstrably false.

The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever. You are free to make several thousand close judgment calls a day. Your freedom is a by-product of your days' triviality. A shoe salesman – who is doing others' tasks, who must answer to two or three bosses, who must do his job their way, and must put himself in their hands, at their place, during their hours – is nevertheless working usefully. Further, if the shoe salesman fails to appear one morning, someone will notice and miss him. Your work of art, on which you lavish such care, has no needs or wishes; it knows you not. Nor does anyone need your work; everyone needs shoes more. There are many paintings, sculptures, and prints already – worthy ones, most edifying and moving ones, intelligent and powerful ones. Why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent work of art on which to gag the world?"

I believe the answer to the dramatic rhetorical question that concludes the passage is found in the first paragraph. Of course, some artists are not unlike shoe salesmen, but for those to whom Dillard refers, for whom art is exhilarating rather than commercial, not to pursue one’s calling would be the metaphysical equivalent of shooting oneself.

The original text from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard:

"Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating. It is sufficiently difficult and complex that it engages all your intelligence. It is life at its most free. Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself. In the democracies, you may even write and publish anything you please about any governments or institutions, even if what you write is demonstrably false.

The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever. You are free to make several thousand close judgment calls a day. Your freedom is a by-product of your days' triviality. A shoe salesman--who is doing others' tasks, who must answer to two or three bosses, who must do his job their way, and must put himself in their hands, at their place, during their hours--is nevertheless working usefully. Further, if the shoe salesman fails to appear one morning, someone will notice and miss him. Your manuscript, on which you lavish such care, has no needs or wishes; it knows you not. Nor does anyone need your manuscript; everyone needs shoes more. There are many manuscripts already -- worthy ones, most edifying and moving ones, intelligent and powerful ones. If you believed Paradise Lost to be excellent, would you buy it? Why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent manuscript on which to gag the world?"