This Kurt Vonnegut Quote Will Forever Change How You Think About Art

"When I was 15 I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them."

Art for the sake of art.

We live in a society that measures one's sense of worth by their achievements, where we rate one's success by how fat their wallet is, not necessarily by what they do. We put our emphasis on the monetary outcome, not the journey. Not to say money isn't important, because without it we wouldn't be able to afford to create anything in the first place. It's hard to separate the two though.

When I teach music, I tell my students "You can create anything. It's fine if it's simple. Whatever you want, just go for it." They tell me "But I can't sing" and I reply "Well do you have a voice?" - "But I only know how to play two chords" -my reply "Why do you need more than two?" Everyone has their own voice, everyone can sing. Just like everyone can pick up a paintbrush and put it to a canvas. It may not be a Van Gogh, but it's yours. I tell them "Feed your soul because you have one. Not because you want to, but because you need to."
What would the world be without the starving artist? It would be a world deprived of expression and culture. A world that feels no emotion, void of any color or depth.

It's a strange one pursuing art. I often meet people and get a similar reaction, "Oh my god that's amazing you're following your dream". In the back of my head, I think "Well it's amazing you have a salary and know where your next paycheck is coming from." It's a pick-your-poison type scenario because you sure as hell can't have your cake and eat it too. Following art in its essence, feels like failing over and over again, with no real end in sight. If you create anything with the mindset of making millions, you'll give up way before you've even begun. But there is no failing in art, it's simply art for the sake of art.

l'art pour l'art - Art for art's sake.

The world would be awfully boring, defunct of all the interesting people pursuing their wildest dreams. So when you're afraid of what the outcome might be, try to focus on what's in front of you instead: Doing for the sake of doing, not for the sake of the end.

My Favorite Vonnegut Books