Is happiness a myth?

Is happiness a myth?

“Let me tell you something, happiness is bullshit. It’s the great myth of the late twentieth century. Do you think Picasso was happy? You think Hemingway was? Hendrix? They were miserable shits. No art worth a damn was created out of happiness, I can tell you that much.

Ambition, narcissism, sex, rage, those are the engines that drive every great artist, every great man. A hole that can’t be filled.”

                - Ed Harris, from the movie Kodachrome (streaming on Netflix)

I’ve been in an ongoing conversation about happiness lately. It seems that everyone has a different definition of what happiness is or isn’t.

The other night I was watching the movie Kodachrome, streaming on Netflix. One of the main characters in the movie, played by the brilliant Ed Harris, is Ben, a cancer-ridden, dying photographer who claims that happiness is bullshit.

He states that no art worth a damn has ever been created out of happiness. He suggests that great artists are driven by pain, addiction and a “hole that can’t be filled”.

Is it necessary to be miserable in order to tap into our creative genius and make great art?

Must we be melancholy to be better artists?

I don’t believe so.

Great art has indeed come out of deep pain and suffering and for many artists, that dark space can become a path to one’s tragic demise. Think Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Rothko or Ernest Hemingway to name a few.

So many of the great artist we know were lonely, compulsive and self-loathing. They were trapped in fear mode and came to believe that their creative output was dependent on their misery. They may have found solace in their art, a temporary escape from their dragons, but they kept choosing to stay unhappy.

Imagine if these artists healed their wounds and lived their lives from a place of self-love and self-worth?

Imagine if they chose to be happy?

Happiness is a choice and if you choose to be unhappy, you will be unhappy no matter what it is you do. Many artists prefer to stay unhappy of fear that their desire to create will disappear with happiness. So they stay stuck inside their self-loathing, fear-based world, and take no steps towards healing their wounds. They prefer to numb the pain with alcohol, drugs or sex believing that their pain is the source of their creativity.

Healing our wounds can be a scary space to enter. But unless we face our dragons, we may never meet our angels.

If I met Van Gogh today, I would more than anything love to wake him up to his true creative genius, beyond the canvas. I would love to teach him how to love himself so that his life becomes the canvas of his creations. So he would feel self-worth and confidence to pull himself out of poverty and live a prosperous life.

We can be happy and be great artists.

Don’t believe the myth.

As always, thanks for your precious attention.