Author: James Chiang

As the year comes to a close, it’s easy to reflect back and wonder: Was it all worth it? What is the worth of what we do? And, what are we worth being one of many billions of people on, what Carl Sagan refers to as, this pale blue dot?

As artists, we face doubts, perhaps more so than any other folks on this planet. The world isn’t kind to the artist, at least not until he has proven his value to the market. Even then, perhaps we (or our work) are only seen as commodities or symbols of success, convenient devices to celebrate further consumption and economic growth while it is the trend to do so. Like all artists, doubt surfaces in my own mind from time to time as it does any other creative. It’s not hard for that to happen. I still remember distinctly when a friend told me that all I do is build sand castles (which I suppose reflected his own view on human life at the time). And after I suffered a career-altering injury, someone “jokingly” said to me that I’m now a has-been. And yet another time some else told me I was delusional, as to why or for what reason to this day I still do not know. This kind of criticism and casual condemnation is common for the artist to receive. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s easy to criticize what’s on stage sitting in the cheap seats. The common cynical mind is a backseat driver, a calculating cerebrum filled with cunning and cleverness — it can’t possibly understand what it takes to create. To dream, to build upon a vision, and to dive so vulnerably into the creative process day in and day out with courage is not something the non-artist or someone lacking in passion or compassion can comprehend. In business terms, they don’t see the percentage in it. Nor do they have the discipline.

This Christmas Eve morning, I was reading from Henry Miller’s words on writing. Not only did I find solace, but confirmation — confirmation that being an artist is the only choice I can make with this life. And I am both happy and grateful for it. What any one else thinks, matters not one iota. And, if what I do makes some kind of difference, offers some kind of inspiration and hope or brings just a little bit of beauty into one person’s life, then it has all been worth it. With hopes that his words may offer you the same kind of comfort as it did for me, I share this page of his beautiful writing here:

“I obey only my own instincts and intuitions. I know nothing in advance. Often I put down things which I do not understand myself, secure in the knowledge that later they will become clear and meaningful to me. I have faith in the man who is writing, who is myself, the writer. I do not believe in words, no matter if strung together by the most skillful man: I believe in language, which is something beyond words, something which words give only an inadequate illusion of. Words do not exist separately, except in the minds of scholars, etymologists, philologists, etc. Words divorced from language are dead things, and yield no secrets.

He continues:

“A man is revealed in his style, the language which he has created for himself. To the man who is pure at heart I believe that everything is as clear as a bell, even the most esoteric scripts. For such a man there is always mystery, but the mystery is not mysterious, it is logical, natural, ordained, and implicitly accepted. Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through and by it. I would like my words to flow along in the same way that the world flows along, a serpentine movement through incalculable dimensions, axes, latitudes, climates, conditions. I accept a priori my inability to realize such an ideal. It does not bother me in the least. In the ultimate sense, the world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure. In the realization of this, failure is itself eliminated. Like the primal spirit of the universe, like the unshakable Absolute, the One, the All, the creator, i.e., the artist, expresses himself by and through imperfection. It is the stuff of life, the very sign of livingness. One gets nearer to the heart of truth, which I suppose is the ultimate aim of the writer, in the measure that he ceases to struggle, in the measure that he abandons the will. “

And finally, with assertiveness, he concludes:

“The great writer is the very symbol of life, of the non-perfect. He moves effortlessly, giving the illusion of perfection, from some unknown center which is certainly not the brain center but which is definitely a center, a center connected with the rhythm of the whole universe and consequently as sound, solid, unshakable, as durable, defiant, anarchic, purposeless, as the universe itself. Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life. The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.” — Henry Miller, Writer.

I wish you all a beautiful conclusion to this decade, and may the new one that comes bring you much joy and meaning in your creative pursuits, whatever form they may take.