“Best” and the Artist

(From a letter written in response to a very talented student who asked about how an artist should deal with not being best. She probably was not expecting an essay in response.)

I spoke to my poetry class about the word “perfect.” I have heard “perfect” come up a lot in student writing, and it makes me twitch. It upsets me to hear young men and women apply this term to any aspect of themselves (fear of not being perfect) and angers me to think of someone imposing this idea upon them (being told they must strive for perfection). To me, the idea of perfection implies an overly simplified universe where there is one “right” way to be and myriad “wrong” ways. Such a system sickens me with its short-sightedness.

“Best” does not fall far from “perfect.” Where do we find “best” in nature? Is there a best quartz crystal? A best sea slug, best ice storm, best mating season, best quasar, best ocean current, best fern? These things just are. They exist because of whatever conditions brought them into being, and when we encounter them, we judge how “best” they fit into our purposes. “Best” is a subjective reality, and it only extends so far.

So when you want to be “best,” what does that mean to you? Does it mean that you want to be better than any other or perform at your best ability?

The first will drive you crazy. It is a fool’s errand. Look for competition and you may as well count grains of sand on the beach. Is that the best use of your time? I confess that I have lost hours and maybe years of envy towards my fellow artists. We produce art, generally, to gain recognition. The amount of recognition we receive may be something that we quantify (loudness of applause in auditorium, number of publications, amount earned); however none of these speak to the nature of creativity. What generates that sort of recognition is more deeper than skill. It is insight. An effective artist cultivates not only acute awareness of her or his own faculty for expression (word, image, motion, etc.) but also of her own personal experience and how this experience matches those of her audience.

To put it more plainly, when your audience loves your work, it won’t be because you are clever. It will be because it resonates personally with them, and you will learn how to find that resonance by being deeply honest with yourself while keeping your eyes on the world around you.

If you want to be heard better, you must listen better. Developing this skill requires a lifetime of effort; but luckily it never gets boring, and there are many rewards along the way. In doing so, you will refine your awareness of your personal perspective, and thereby sharpen your ability express that. The specific always trumps the general. Honor your own personal artifacts and rituals, and these will connect you to the world around you. That’s the paradox: pursuing the personal, we reach the universal.

For further commentary on this, I recommend Emerson’s Self-Reliance:

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

If, however, what you mean by “best” is pushing yourself to maximizing your potential, pushing for ever farther heights, and “being your best self,” then that is something between you and the standards you create for yourself. We can always do better. “Best” is a horizon we constantly reach for and never grasp, but it is better that way.

What would we do if we actually took hold of best? We exercise physically not only to get our body limber and fit, but to keep it there. We eat every day because we hunger every day, and no one meal offers indefinite satisfaction. So, as artists, we keep creating because we want to maintain our ability to create, keep expressing because we continue to feel there is something worth expressing–and every day, every minute, every breath can offer new inspiration, a new, never-before-seen moment to speak to.

You know what the problem is with “shades of gray”? They imply a gradation between black and white, right and wrong, yes and no, best and worst. When you see shades of gray, you have to alter your palette. Gray is just how colors appear to those looking for black and white. Instead, look for color, for every color, and you will open up to a far broader spectrum.

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