Hey, Might Your Dream Be Killing You?

It’s National Suicide Prevention Week. I posted a long thing on Facebook the other day focusing largely on the newest numbers out of the CDC, which tell us suicide rates (along with suicide attempts) are on the rise among teens. But later that night I got a reminder that depression is so insidious because it comes in so many forms. In this case, an online acquaintance sent me a DM warning me that a mutual social-media pal was posting some thoughts that seemed, well, suicidal.

The person in question is in the creative arts. This person is normally very chipper, but last night they seemed to just break open, and the truth came out: They’ve been “at this” (meaning: their chosen creative path) X number of years, and for what? They’ve tried, they haven’t made it, and now they’re “done.” That last word wouldn’t have been so alarming if it hadn’t come at the end of a series of tweets that really did read like a dry run for a suicide note.

(Sidebar: I didn’t see the concerned DM until hours after it was sent. I was in the middle of catching up on the truly harrowing feed when its author suddenly came back online and added a cheery response to a cute cat picture. So it goes.)

I’d love to say this was an anomaly, but it’s not. I’ve seen this very thing play out too many times on Twitter and Facebook. Hell, it’s played out in my head too many times. Others have written far more knowledgeably about the relationship between creativity and mental illness. But I do know firsthand something about this, being a writer who’s also dealt with mild depression all his adult life. I also know from being around other creative types, and from teaching in a creative field: You take this shit personally. I don’t know whether someone with a dream of finance takes what they do this personally, nor if they are this unable to see degrees of success vs. an all-or-nothing approach. I’m guessing yes to the first, but probably no to the second.

If you want to be a banker, you undertake a series of jobs that you hope will get you to your desired level, but I feel (and I could be wrong!) like someone in this job would be able to experience pride and satisfaction with at least some of their levels of achievement. All too often in creative fields, if you’re not at the top, whatever that means, then you are somehow a failure, full stop.

If you speak of “making it” in a creative field, you are instantly admitting that you have no idea what “making it” means. And I guarantee you, very few people who seem to have “made it” actually feel like they have. I would guess that Stephen Tobolowsky, the ubiquitous character actor, has made it. In 30 years of working, he has 218 credits to his name on IMDB — and that’s just in film and TV. If you listen to his podcast, though, you know that Stephen Tobolowsky is a man of many worries.

I’ve heard more than one comedian say this: people assume that because they’ve seen you on TV, you must be rich. That is, they’re saying, an inaccurate standard of success. I’ve also heard some of those same comedians turn around and slag off another comic — all because that comic has a TV appearance coming up. It’s a crazy game.

The best advice I ever got in any workshop was not remotely craft-related. It was from Richard Bausch, who by the way is a living master of the short story, and it went like this: “At the end of the day, ask yourself: Did I write today? If the answer is yes, then no further questions.”

You are not your book. Or your acting work or your gigs, or what have you. You are a person with a history and abilities and likes and dislikes and — I hope — people to share your life with you. Think back to my social media pal saying they’d been at it X years and now they were done. Even if you don’t want to ask why you’re in your chosen field to begin with — that can be a heavy question — then you should at least ask why you would choose to go into a field that was so explicitly different from the mainstream, yet continue to judge yourself by mainstream standards of success?

Think about it: If a person working at a bank loses millions of dollars, they will be fired and possibly incarcerated. They will certainly never work in that field again. If an actor bombs in a Broadway play and loses millions of dollars for their producers, that actor can still be an actor.

So if your dream is to be a rich and famous actor, I guess that’s fine, but what does it really have to do with being an actor? And I worry about the person who wants to be a rich and famous actor, because I know that person isn’t enjoying a single step along the way. You know these people, too: they’re almost embarrassed by their accomplishments, so long as those accomplishments aren’t having attained wealth and fame. “I mean, yeah, it’s great and everything, but this [theater/film/etc.] is kind of small potatoes.” Which implies, by the way, that so are you, the person seeing them at this stage in their career.

Meanwhile, how much do those people actually enjoy it if, by some miracle, they manage to become rich and famous? Those are the people who end up flaming out. You read about them on Gawker, which is not generally where you want to be written or read about. You hear about them marrying and divorcing and drugging and rehabbing and then they end up walking naked up the middle of La Cienega in a fugue state.

Here’s my advice: Do the stuff you want to do, but also work on your broken shit. Know that many of the people who seem to “make it” so quickly are able to do this because they’re driven by the unbeatable twin forces of Being Broken and Needing To Prove Something To Someone. These people may even be friendly to you and part of your scene, but you know in your heart the ones who would cut your throat and wear your face-skin if they thought it would help them achieve their dreams. And it’s a nasty irony (and also entirely foreseeable) that most of these people believe, deep down, that anyone who likes what they do must be an idiot. They’re always waiting for the right audience, their true audience, to come along. And it never will, no matter how big they get.

These people are never, ever happy. Do not use them as role models or goal posts. Use them as cautionary tales.

Here’s a dream: To be an actor who acts. To be an actor who’ll act in any play/movie/TV show/radio drama/webisode/college video that comes along, because you love to act and you love to work.

Another dream: To be a writer who is read. Not the kind who has to be front table at Barnes & Noble or nothing, but someone who happily publishes in a literary journal or a cool website or who puts out essays in PDF format on a regular basis. I’d say simply writing is enough, but let’s not be morons here. Just as you don’t act for no one, you also don’t write purely for yourself.

Instead of dreaming of selling millions of records, how about dreaming of being a musician who records and releases music, and who plays that music for anyone who’ll listen?

I’m not saying don’t have ambitions. I’m not saying don’t try to grow your audience or find exciting opportunities. I’m saying don’t let your ambition define you. I’m saying don’t let the size of your audience or the size of your paycheck equal the size of your success.

I’m also not saying you should shun the opportunity to write/perform for bigger audiences. I am saying you shouldn’t let it kill you if it doesn’t happen. Because at least you’ve been using your abilities and talents.

Note: The whole this-dream-is-killing-me thing feels worse now in 2013 because so many means of modestly supporting yourself as an artist have simply disappeared. I know almost no one who is supporting themselves purely with their art. This is a whole other painful reality.

My dream used to be to be a famous and beloved author who made a comfortable living at it. In recent times, as the likelihood of all of this coming true has diminished, I’ve realized something very embarrassing: Where in that dream is the word “writing”?

I’m 43. I have one book. I’m ridiculously goddamn slow at writing. After that book, I did write and set aside a 550-page novel, and I’m not sure what threw me more — finishing something I’d come to loathe, or how easy it was to put it away when I was done. I’ll go back to it, but in the meantime I’m writing a new thing I’m much happier with. Still: all too slowly. Panic sets in, daily. Believe me. But at the end of each of those days, not only do I have to say I wrote, I think I have to say I liked writing it. Right now that’s all that can matter.

You don’t get to decide what other people will like. You don’t get to decide when the world will start paying attention to you. It’s not the world’s job to pay attention to you. It’s also, for the record, not really the world. For the very biggest writers, it’s maybe a few hundred thousand readers. For the very biggest actors or musicians, it’s maybe a few million audience members. That’s a tiny fraction of the whole world, and except from a few nutjobs, the writer/actor/musician’s work occupies the audience’s mind mostly for the brief time they’re experiencing it, and then they move on until the next time, just doing what they do. I think if you’re doing this for the right reasons, that should be okay with you, just as it should be okay with you that some people will simply never like what you do. Where you get into trouble is when you’re doing this in order to earn love. Because an audience, a review, a dollar — they are not love.

So you keep doing what you do, too, whether you’re Somebody Famous or just Somebody. I was going to add, “And I hope you get a million dollars for it,” but I don’t actually hope that. I just hope the thing you do makes you happy. And if it doesn’t, then truly: Find something else. The world can always use more actors/writers/artists/comedians/musicians — but it doesn’t need more. What it does need more of: people who are satisfied.