The Artist & The Future
Posterity and its Pitfalls
Dear Death,
Is it futile to try to create something that lives beyond ourselves? As an artist and a writer, I have a desire to create as much as I can and leave behind a body of work in hope that one of my characters, or poems or paintings gets to see a future that I will not have the opportunity to.
Is this just the Ego speaking or is it perhaps something greater inside of us?
Sincerely,
Impermanent Painter
Dear Impermanent Painter,
Whether posterity cherishes your paintings, poems, or stories is none of your business. You cannot measure yourself against the opinions of people who don’t exist yet. When you die, you will not know what paintings will hang in tomorrow’s museums nor what books will one day lie on the nightstands of the babies born the day of your death. Concern yourself instead with the immediacy of your art in this present time.
Cherish art and what it brings to life today. Make art that is important to you now. Let it surround your life in beauty, make meaning out of the suffering of the world, connect you with other people and develop a viewpoint that is uniquely yours. Then when you have made something you cherish, share it. Sell your art. Gift it away. Hold readings and exhibitions. Part of the magic of art is in the sharing because that’s where all hell breaks loose.
An artist has to learn to let go. Your art will find its way into the world. And once the critics and the public have their hands on it, the story is no longer yours. People may be electrified or bored. Your poem may help them cherish their own life or they will forget it ten seconds after reading or both. They may weave you into the story of a decade, a movement, a school. That school will have detractors and proponents and its reputation may be uplifted or brought down by other artists your work has been tied to. Or they may leave you out of such historic narratives. Once you make your art, you control nothing.
The ego wants control. It wants to protect itself, generate some self importance and manage its nightmares and anxieties. Posterity will never give the ego the control it seeks. Discourage your ego from forming attachments to a future it will never see. Only unnecessary suffering will come from letting your ego grasp at mirages.
Instead, let the ego control what it may. It can insist the art be meaningful to you. It can control that the stories and images align with your values. It can be firm in enforcing the standards and values of the art you sign your name to. It can be satisfied that your signature means the work upholds your creative vision.
Imbue the signature with meaning and then let go. Let the generations that come do whatever they want. Accept their freedom in order to find and exalt in your own artistic liberty.
Sincerely,
Death
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Hansa