As a guy who considers himself a writer and artist in general, I am naturally a lifelong researcher and fan of many other writers and artists that came before me. I have spent lots of time reading about them and their lives, and I always love hearing their great stories. It’s kinda funny to think that these literary giants created some of the world’s greatest works of art, yet they were still just average people like you and I. For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway are notable figures for their work, but there’s still that famous story about the time Fitzgerald got self-conscious about his penis size (after Zelda Fitzgerald told him he’d never be able to please a woman), so he asked Hemingway to take a look at it. These are the things your universities and colleges don’t tell you: your heroes had personal lives separate from the work they produced. In one of my favourite films made in the last few years, The Beach Bum (2019), when Moondog (a famous writer) is in court, the Judge tells him, “It amazes me how someone that can write so beautifully can be so crude and reckless.” What I would argue is, for the Moondogs of the world, their personal lives aren’t exactly separate from their work. Who they are in life informs the quality of their work.
One thing that has become more clear to me as I’ve gotten older is that, for a lot of these revered figures responsible for influencing arts & culture, that was literally the only thing they excelled at. In other words, their achievement came at the cost of almost everything else in their lives. These people are our heroes, but they are also more often than not, hilariously shitty people when you zoom out. Hemingway was a great writer and an alcoholic who killed himself. Hunter S. Thompson was a great journalist and an alcoholic who killed himself. Sylvia Plath was a great poet who killed herself. Osamu Dazai was a great writer who killed himself. Norman Mailer stabbed his wife at a party. William S. Burroughs accidentally shot his wife in the head. Robert Frost was a terrible father on paper who lived longer than most of his children. Anais Nin changed the face of erotic literature forever, and in her personal life banged her own father. Bukowski wrote beautiful poetry and great novels and he was an alcoholic who could be abusive to the people in his life. Louis CK is one of the greatest comedians of all time, and his compulsive nature led him to misinterpret signs from certain women in his life. Richard Pryor had demons inside of him that made him the funniest man alive in his day, but also forced him to act out and quell the same demons with various vices when he wasn’t onstage. Woody Allen is one of the greatest writers and directors that ever lived, but his good judgment was almost entirely limited to his work and led him to make poor choices in his personal life. Quentin Tarantino is obviously a great writer-director, and he nearly killed Uma Thurman during the making of Kill Bill (and some would say he signed a deal with the devil and looked the other way in Hollywood to get his masterpieces made).
I could easily go on and on about artists and their awful personal lives, but I’ll stop there. My point in bringing all of them up is to clearly illustrate a pattern of behaviour that exists among our greatest artists. I can’t prove it, but I do believe that for many people, what makes us awful in our personal lives is also ironically what makes us excel. In some cases, you cannot have one without the other. It’s akin to a sociopathic Daniel Plainview-esque CEO of some oil corporation somewhere: the thing in his personality that makes him a piece of shit to others is, ironically, what also leads to him being one of the richest men in the world. It’s like that meme phrase getting passed around these days, “Inside of us are two wolves.” Personally speaking, I have never had much luck with people in general, but I believe that is also what makes me good at what I’m good at. The things that set me apart from other people, my biggest weaknesses, are also somehow my greatest strengths. For example, I consider myself an outsider: I don’t have many friends, and I’ve never had a long-term girlfriend. I just don’t play with others very well in the sandbox, and it’s hard for me to tolerate people for too long if they’re too annoying. I can be a cold and distant guy, but that also makes me a great observer of people. I can learn from their behaviour and mistakes to the benefit of my own life. And I can also further channel that outsider status into my writing and dedicating the time it requires to making literature and other work of value for people.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed this pattern among people more and more, not just famous figures. For example, a lot of people I speak to are absolutely horrendous at the English language. Both writing and speaking it. I’m not judging or being a dick here, I’m simply just stating a fact. A lot of people cannot read books and do not have the level of sustained focus required to finish a novel. However, what I’m trying to say here is that they’re only unskilled in that area. Just because they’re dumb in that area does not mean they are dumb in all areas of their lives. It is often the case that people who cannot read and write properly are amazing in subjects like math, or have great attention to detail at something like painting or cooking or something else. I have witnessed this phenomenon so often in my life now I feel compelled to write about it. Whenever I have to work with an illustrator for one of my many writing projects, I always notice they are terrible at communicating in English over e-mail, but when it’s time to turn in their work it’s damn near always impressive. They might spell the title of the book wrong, they might bungle the name of the author, but I’ll be damned if the illustration itself isn’t perfect on the first try. These types of people can only do one thing right. They could never write the novel that I write, and I could never create the beautiful cover art that they do. It’s almost like people are simply not meant to be good at all things: what makes us terrible in one area makes us amazing in another.
Another example in the arts is Leo Tolstoy, who was a prolific womanizer, gambler, and alcoholic. But as he got older, it seems that his several years of hoeing up and drinking caused him to feel a deep shame. This led to him reflecting on the nature of god, religion, and morals, and he channeled themes like these in his major works: War & Peace and Anna Karenina. It was only because he was a complete failure for many years of his life that he was able to create what are now considered the greatest novels ever written. I don’t think all those years he spent being an addict and shitty human were wasted at all: he ultimately redeemed himself by putting it all to good use in the end.
I have spoken before on energy and how we always need to be mindful and guard it, and I believe this is indicative of the human talent level as well. It is simply too much of a drain on the average human to be good at multiple things, and naturally, it’s like our gifts are automatically limited to one thing. A hot girl might not be a deeply philosophical thinker, for example, but this may mean she is more of an empath and better at dealing with people than someone like I might. A girl like that might excel in the field of healthcare, for example, or something else that requires one to deal with people consistently. She might struggle to read all of Proust, but will have far superior interpersonal skills than a guy like me, who struggles to relate to people and pick up on certain things. I can easily read all of Proust, but I can’t read people well or social cues sometimes.
I once read this thing about Woody Allen and why he’s so brilliant at writing romance films in particular. The writer made the case that, because Woody’s a nerd, he is naturally bad with women. But this is also what made him a brilliant observer of women and writer of so-called “sexy” films like Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) we wouldn’t think a nerd would be able to write. Perhaps due to being an outsider, he was able to see things clearer than a guy who actually gets women that look like Scarlett Johansson might be. This is an argument I agree with, and I believe this is the case for myself and many other artists as well. The guy who is actually capable of winning the heart of a woman like Scarlett Johannson would probably never be able to actually write a script about what it was like because he’s probably only good at combing pomade through his hair or whatever. He most likely does not have the level of observation and intellect required to actually write about his experiences with beautiful women. Ironically, even though I could never woo Scarlett Johansson, I’d be able to write about it as if I had.
Another way I’m unlike other people in most areas, but better than others in another is my sensitivity to certain situations and things. I have never been diagnosed with anything officially, but I believe I have some kind of sensitivity to sounds, and feel certain things too deeply when I shouldn’t. This leads for disaster sometimes in my personal life, but for my work it’s highly beneficial. If someone is mean to me, for example, I no longer feel like having them in my life and I’ll cut ‘em out. Even if they just happen to be joking or fucking around with me, I don’t really tend to see it that way and in certain cases I’ll stop talking to them. I will block them, kill them in my mind, have an imaginary funeral for them, compartmentalize them out of existence, do what I gotta do, and get back to my work. And then later, this same sensitivity is actually a strength in the area of art: I honestly don’t think I’d be able to focus deeply on creating fictional work if I wasn’t attuned in that way. It’s a lot of work to juggle all of those characters, situations, dialogues, plot lines, jokes, and worlds. Sometimes it’s tough for me to care about much in my day to day life, but when I do care about things in my art, I’m pretty passionate about whatever it is.