Have Fun at All Cost
“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” – T. S. Eliot
Artist does his things for the sake of it—they might turn out to be helpful for him later, but that is not his primary concern. In other words, he doesn’t do it for himself. He doesn’t allow his personal problems to get in the way of it. Art is when it’s done for its own sake and nothing else. There is no room for personality there. Impersonality is the defining character of the artist.
This is why the artist often looks stupid from the outside. What he does isn’t helping him most of the time—so it doesn’t make sense to other people. But he keeps doing it. And the only reason why he keeps at it, despite getting no immediate returns, is because he’s having fun. Your whole being is engaged when you are having fun—and your whole being is always bigger than your problems. This is another defining character of the artist—he is immersed in the present. Problem solving, on the other hand, always anticipate the future.
Be an artist first, then occasionally solve problems. Not vice versa. And solve only fun problems.