The despairing artist is often painted in a romantic way, whether Kierkegaard or John Cheevers or Woody Allen. You don’t have to live that way.
He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
–Psalm 40: 2-3
The Artist in Despair …
How many images of the despairing artist do we see, whether in movies or in biographies? The lives of artists, writers, poets full of ennui, acting out in public. The whole John Cheevers thing …
John Cheever’s daughter, Susan, was resentful of the romanticism surrounding her father’s drunken literary life. Below is a letter she wrote to the New York Times in repose to an op-ed on her father.
“I was amazed to read James Atlas’s romantic evocation of the fun we used to have in the New York Literary World. As someone who was a child at those parties where Literary Greats stumbled around lecherously in an opaque cloud of cigarette smoke, I can testify that for those involved–certainly for many wives and most children–that scenery was anything but fun. A tragedy of the generation that came before ours was that many of this country’s wonderful writers were also alcoholics. Every drunk–whether or not he can write–leaves a trail of destruction, desolation, confusion, and sadness which goes on for generations. It’s certainly true that my father’s novels and stories are redolent with romantic images of the perfect martini and the ideal adultery, but those stories are fiction–images created by a man who never found either” (Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees 120).
Then there’s the whole charade of mental illness and the artistic life, as if art requires one to find any excuse to ‘free one’s mind and imagination’.
But despair is neither cool nor artsy. It just sucks—by virtue of which, it must be struggled against and ultimately defeated.
Despair is a difficult state of being to work through sometimes. There was a time when I thought it was an artsy way of being—channeling my inner Kierkegaard … (Am I in the despair of wanting to be myself or the despair of not wanting to be myself? … Aw forget it!) So existential … so Woody Allenesque.
But it’s just not okay to wallow in it, to grow despondent and slothful … That’s the devil’s playground, and the killer of any artist work.
And that’s the point …
Despair is not artsy—it’s the death of the artist. The death of the person to be precise.
So why is it glamourized?
Art and Manic Depression
Here’s Betsy Lerner, well-known editor, and author of The Forest from the Trees, on the sad romanticization of manic depression …
“The only literary affliction more romanticized than addiction is mental illness. … If you suffer from manic-depression, your work and behaviour will be judged accordingly. Is your excessive output the rest of your mania? Are you brilliant or just theatrical? Are you truly suffering or self-indulgent? No one will say, if your book is years late in coming, Give him as much time as he needs, he’s a mad genius. No one sits in an auditorium for hours after a reading is supposed to begin waiting for the mad-genius writer to show up. People don’t tolerate the erratic behaviour that usually accompanies mood swings–at least not for long. Sure if they were expecting Virgina Woolf, Lord Byron, or Vincent van Gogh to give a talk, they’d probably wait around. After the fact, after genius is recognized, every one wants to get up close. But if you had known van Gogh during his lifetime and had seen him in his final months, you probably would have dismissed him as crazy. Most of the world did, especially the people of Arles who petitioned the tan Gogh should remain in confinement following his ear-cutting episode” (Lerner, 124-125).
Come to think of it, Kierkegaard was pretty nuts too. Such a guarded man. Wrote, then went to the
theatre only to book it after the curtain went up and the acting began. He’d return home and write till intermission, and he’d show up again at the theatre to drink with friends only to race back home again to write during the next act, and so forth. He collapsed at 42 years old on the streets of Copenhagen, and died a month later in hospital. Some claim he died of tuberculosis; but there was a lot of madness in his life that was part of his schtick. In reading his letters, he would have been a tough person to hang out with as much as his writing has impacted a number of popular philosophers after him.
The manic-depression in the work of art can be a kind of attempted alchemy; a way of channeling something you think is unique inside in order for your genius to come out–a way of making gold out of something base. And it is base. But then you get to the bottom of things, you peel back the onion of your soul, and you realize that all that acting out, all the self-aggrandizement that you used to wrap around yourself, is really nothing new and that you’re just a regular person whose brokenness happens to deceive you into thinking your despair makes you truly artistic.
Nevertheless, the world romanticizes manic writers because the world likes to promote illness and brokenness–indeed it goes farther than that and celebrates it. And that influences the next generation of writers and artists who believe they have to go farther and deeper into madness to gain acceptance and some kind of artistic aura.
But that’s not what makes Art …
More on Mania …
From Jamison’s Touching Fire …
“Many artists and writers believe that turmoil, suffering, and extremes in emotional experience are integral not only to the condition of human suffering but to their abilities as artists. They feel that psychiatric treatment will transform them into normal, well adjusted, dampened, and bloodless souls–unable, or unmotivated to write, pain, or compose.”
But you can get help …
Betsy Lerner picks up from where Jamison leaves off …
“It may be hard to envision William Blake on the couch describing his visions, or Hemingway droning on to a small bearded man about his cat fetish, but if you can’t get your work done because you are suffering from some form of malaise or agitation, avail yourself of help. Writers live in their heads more than most people. Having someone to let off some of the steam to may not be a bad thing. And more important, creativity is inalienable. No shrink can take it away from you”(Lerner, 132).
What would Hemingway have done with a few more decades rather than all the pain he caused himself and his family? (I mean, the guy wrote The Old Man and the Sea—a truly spiritual work. He wasn’t bereft of wisdom …) Would it have been worth even years of psychotherapy or some form of healing?
Orthodox Psychotherapy–Yes it’s a thing …
For Orthodox Christians, there is spiritual practice; but that requires struggle, the sacraments of the Church, and a spiritual guide (father of confession). One of the best books on this topic is Orthodox Psychotherapy, which serves as an overview of the Church’s understanding of what despair is, what its causes are, and the pathway to healing.
“Much is being said today about psychological problems. I believe that the so-called psychological problems are mainly problems of thoughts, a darkened mind, and an impure heart. The impure heart as described by the Fathers, the dark and gloomy mind and impure thoughts are the source of all the so-called psychological problems. When a man is inwardly healed, when he has discovered the place of his heart, when he has purified the noetic part of his soul and freed his intelligence, he has no psychological problems” (Orthodox Psychotherapy, 20).
The making of Art is secondary to becoming like God. And becoming like God is a process of re-aligning your thoughts, actions, desires towards purity. To become more and more like Christ, and thus enter a place of deep healing.
More than making great art is entering into loving union with God and from there being healed. For when we talk about people suffering from mental illness, there’s a great deal of struggle with thoughts roused by the passions.
When I go through a bout of despair, I need to take inventory of my life:
What am I watching?
What am I reading—or not reading?
Am I sleeping in through morning prayers?
Am I drinking too much wine over family dinners?
Am I eating too much and fasting too little?
Have I been consistently taking the Eucharist?
The Eucharist
The Eucharist is the place we encounter Christ, and He, by offering His Body and Blood, encounters us.
I recall from Michael O’Brien’s letter to writers that he placed a premium on taking the Eucharist often, and there in those moments offering Christ his work, as well as his hopes, dreams, and despairs.
On that happy night In secret I went forth, beheld by none, And seeing naught; Having no light nor guide Excepting that which burned within my heart, Which lit my way More safely than the glare of noon-day sun to where, expectant, He waited for me who does know me well, Where none appeared but He.
—St. John of the Cross
What a beautiful description of the Eucharist. This encounter with the One “who does know me well,” and “where none appeared but He.”
Another quote on the Eucharist and joy in our daily struggles …
We cannot separate our lives from the Eucharist. The moment we do, something breaks. People ask, ‘Where do the sisters get the joy and energy to do what they are doing?’ The Eucharist involves more than just receiving; it also involves satisfying the hunger of Christ. He says, ‘Come to Me.’ He is hungry for souls.
–Saint Mother Teresa
Return to the Banquet Table …
My father of confession, when I complain to him about despair, encourages me to “just return to the banquet.”
Returning to the banquet is the antithesis of despair; it is the proper and efficacious way through the despair—not by my own bootstraps, but by the One who waits for my return and does know me well. No one else can lead me through the despair into Faith, Hope, and Love—only our Lord Jesus Christ.
I love the imagery St. John of the Cross paints, this evening through which the soul moves in secret … It’s a movement between you and Christ. My father of confession also encourages me to keep my eyes shut during the Divine Liturgy so that it’s just between Christ and me. And then, in his words, ‘to book it’ after the sprinkling of holy water to further keep my attention fixed on this beautiful union with Christ. When the fire in the oven is good, you want to keep the door shut to keep the heat in.
Prayer Dissipates the Ego
To come to God in prayer. Despair can cut us down. But it can also put a microscope over our egos. Prayer dissipates the ego. When we go before the icons and sit or kneel or stand before them, it’s like a laser to the soul. In those moments, we can enter into thanksgiving.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you (James 4:8). It is for us to begin. If we take on step towards the Lord, He takes ten towards us—He who saw the prodigal son while he was yet at a distance, and had compassion and ran and embraced him.
—Tito Colliander
Again, return to the banquet table …
With despair we often think ‘we’re screwed’—we’ll never come out of it. And sometimes we don’t want to come out of it. Sometimes it just feels like the ‘artsy’ thing, the Woody Allenesque thing to do.
But it’s never good.
The heart is darkened, and we are immobilized.
But look at what the prodigal son did—he returned to the banquet. He returned to God.
Despair is the Affliction of the Enemy
You see, despair is not a prize of artists.
It comes when we drop our guard, when we live away from God—out there doing our own thing. There is nothing more freeing than freedom; but there is also nothing more enslaving … God is everywhere present and filling all things. He doesn’t leave us, but we wander from Him.
Despair is a way the enemy afflicts us. But it can also become, when struggled through, a pathway to virtue …
The further the soul advances, the greater are the adversaries against which it must contend. Blessed are you, if the struggle grows fierce against you at the time of prayer. Do not think that you have acquired any virtue before you have shed your blood in your struggle for it. Until death you must fight against sin, resisting with all your strength. Do not allow your eyes to sleep or your eyelids to slumber until the hour of your death, but labour without ceasing that you may enjoy life without end.
–As quoted in Kallistos Ware’s The Orthodox Way
Art Created Out of a Joy-Filled Heart
Indeed the closer we come to God, the greater joy fills our hearts. This is the teaching of scripture and the holy fathers and mothers of the Church.
And that joy-filled heart is then in the right position to create art:
Art reconciles us to life. Art is the introduction of order and harmony in the soul, not of trouble and disorder. … If an artist does not accomplish the miracle of transforming the soul of the spectator into an attitude of love and forgiveness, then his art is only an ephemeral passion
—Nicholas Gogal, letter to the poet Zhukovskii, January 1848.
Last, when we’re in despair we are under the false belief that we are suffering alone, that we are alone. But standing in divine liturgy we realize we are not. In fact, one of the reasons we go to liturgy is to know who we are, who we belong to.
One of the ways the ancients understood identity is by the community you are a part of, by the place you’re from. And in this way, the Eucharist is that identity, for we stand in liturgy as sons of God. We stand before God as His beloved, along with all the heavenly hosts and all the principalities and all the authorities, and then receive His gracious act of mystical union. It’s like hobbits standing among the throngs of elves and wizards as the victory cries rattle and thunder around them. And that glory given to God around His throne is directly connected to the battles His saints engage in and win here on earth.
And thus, we are never ever ever alone.
Keep Your Mind in Hell …
As Saint Silouan the Athonite says …
Keep your mind in hell, and despair not.
Then he goes on to say …
Understand two thoughts, and fear them. One says, “You are a saint,” and the other, “You won’t be saved.” Both of these thoughts are from the enemy, and there is no truth in them. But think this way: I am a great sinner, but the Lord is merciful.
And poof! …
The dissipation of the ego and thus of despair–for the time being …
Glory to God for all things, now and ever and unto the ages of ages,
Amen.
