LOOOKIT WHAT I CAN DO!!!!

A thing I've come to accept about myself is that I crave attention. What's less clear is how I should feel about that and what, if anything, I should do about it.

I just watched the film Birdman, which tackles this issue well. In the film, a former action movie star tries to redeem his artistic reputation late in his career by staging an arty play on Broadway. As the audience learns more about his life, it becomes clear that his film career (and now his stage career) have come at the expense of his relationships with his family and his mental health. The film tries to grapple with the sad, deluded, pulsating egos that drive art forward. To me, there are a couple of major truths that the film elucidates particularly well. First, if people were psychologically healthy, there wouldn't be any art. Second, there is no level of fame or even adulation that will effectively scratch the ego itch. Moreover, the quest for the love and attention of strangers is often accompanied by the neglect or taking-for-granted of the real, non-ephemeral love of our families.

I play live music. Though there are sometimes some financial incentives (it actually is a pretty decent part time job...just a terrible full-time job), what really drives me to do it is attention. If I just needed some extra cash, I could work at a gas station. If I just enjoyed playing music, I could do it in my house by myself. If I just enjoyed playing music with other people, I could do it in somebody's living room or garage. I record music and put it on the internet and play it in front of other people because I want them to pay attention to it and like it, and thereby make me feel validated. It's my sad little desperate ego that drives me to get up in front of strangers and make sounds and say, like a toddler, "Hey, lookit what I can do!!!!!!!!!" (I could say the same thing for writing this post, actually).

Knowing this about myself means that I often feel like an idiot performing for people. First of all, I don't know if anything I'm doing is actually good. I want it to be good. I try to make it good. But I don't know if it actually is! It's one thing to get up in front of people and display your naked ego-drive if you're presenting something that is actually worthy of attention (whether you GET the attention is a different issue); but if you're getting up in front of people and just making noise, then you're a joke. Birdman does a good job of capturing the feel of that internal dialog. "What are you doing? You're pathetic. People are laughing at you. Stop it. Have some self-respect. Stop showing your ass. You're a clown, not an artist."

Sometimes, after a show, I feel like I've had one of those dreams when you're walking around with your pants off.

But even if you ARE good, and you are pretty certain about that, there's no guarantee that anybody is going to engage with your art. You can't get the adulation you want if people don't listen/watch/read what you create. I've played a lot of shows where I've been background music. I'm supposed to accompany people's drinking and eating, but add slightly more excitement than an ipod would. Even if people compliment the music, I know they're not really listening closely. I've recorded music and put it on the internet and then waited...for nothing. Nobody listens. Nobody gives a shit.

The thing is, you can't get your ego stroked if nobody is actually engaged with what you make.

Even people who are much better artists than I am struggle to break through all the competing attention-demanders in the culture to win a precious few minutes of some stranger's attention. A person can praise us all they want, but it will only matter if we think it's backed up by an experience of genuine engagement with what we created, and because a lot of praise is really just people trying to be nice and polite, an artist will probably receive any praise with skepticism.

Even if you are good and even if you manage to break through to some non-trivial fan base, the added attention means that you will also now start to encounter vocal critics. For the sad egos that lie behind the art, one criticism is going to cancel out 20 praises. I've never been popular enough as an artist to have my art criticized, but having read my teaching evaluations, I know that this pattern holds for me.

So, this quest to scratch the ego itch by securing attention and praise from strangers is ultimately a fool's errand. It's empty. It doesn't work. But without it, there wouldn't be any art! So, on the individual level, it's sort of sad, but collectively, society benefits. It's sort of the opposite of a collective action problem, actually. So, next time you think about it, thank an artist for being pathetic! Their psychological damage makes life more pleasant for all of us.