I’m so grateful for your summary of the doc Mason! I feel like he could benefit from the love and compassion of a 12step program. In my humble opinion, the creative process doesn’t have to be selfish or result in the abuse (his son!) of other creators. Ultimately, creativity is a selfless act. It’s a gift we offer to the Creation. I know lots of generous, kind and incredible creators who don’t abuse themselves or others to get their wonderful work done. I feel like this doc will continue to perpetuate the myth that the artists must be tortured to create great work. That’s kind of a bummer- or maybe the youth will see the folly in his example? I hope so! We all deserve to be joyful.
P.S. It was a little reminiscent of Jiro My Dream of Sushi- with the terribly sad father son dynamic. I’m not well versed in Japanese male culture.
Thanks for weighing in, Sarah. I really appreciate your emphasis on the *joyfulness* of creativity. (Definitely something I struggle with!) And, yeah, I agree that we shouldn't be perpetuating the tortured-artist myth . . . and yet for those of us who do feel tortured some of the time, I also feel like it's comforting to see your process reflected in other creators?
(PS — It looks like your comment got double-posted somehow, so I'm going to delete the duplicate comment.)
The competition is fierce, the expectation is through the roof. And even then, it’s just plain ego.
It reminds me of beavers. Once a certain age the male son HAS TO leave home and go a certain distance DOWN stream or river because the father cannot event get a whiff of him after that or he will rip the son to shreds.
Maybe it's not actually selfish to choose to art-making over other uses of life energy — for many artists it might be better described as a stubborn devotion to their innate calling. But some degree of refusing the demands of others HAS TO BE a characteristic of any successful artist — by successful, I mean an artist who actually produces work, more or less steadily. Lacking that devotion, the world (the human part of it) would happily suck away your days, one demand after another, until there's no time or energy left for art-making.
I loved watching this doco, thank you for reminding me of it! I wasn't bothered by Miyazaki's 'selfishness'. Maybe we could call it determination, tenacity, one pointed focus. As a writer I certainly found his creative process to be very real, his grumpiness, his naps and idiosyncratic habits very relatable. I was very happy to see inside his working day and process. Seeing the drawings evolve on the walls of the office was wonderful.
On one hand, I don't think selfishness is an inherently negative quality--meeting one's own needs and wants is too often dubbed "selfish" and yet is a necessary element to a healthy, balanced life whether one is an artistic genius or not. However, insensitivity seems to be directly at odds with the sensibility which is imperative to producing great art. Thus, I don't think it is a question of whether one should excuse a great artist for their humanistic lacking but rather that those who are most caring, sensitive, and pure as people are also the best--not necessarily famous, but eternal--artists.
Good points. In fact, "selfishness" may not be the right word at all — maybe "single-mindedness" is a better choice? In any case, totally agree that choosing to focus on your own projects and meet your own needs is not inherently selfish.
Yet some of the BEST art is produced by not very nice people. There are artists we love to love, and there are artists we love to hate. Often in both instances we live to love their art no matter what. We don’t reject Picasso because he was a misogynist. We don’t reject Pollock because he was a drunk. Some may question liking their art for those reasons but those that do are being subjective. The art is good. Regardless. And it was achieved BY and FOR the angst which drove it.
I've met a lot of artists that seem like selfish, narcissistic, vain, sometimes even cruel jerks (history reveals plenty of them, too). I have often wondered -- the armchair psychologist within -- if these qualities aren't more about insecurity and fear, ways of compensating; or do these qualities develop because of what it takes to live an artist's life -- which is difficult and punishing and often seemingly impossible? I don't know. I have come to really admire artists with great humility, vulnerability; people who are radically honest and kind, too. These qualities are rare in human beings, period, but seem terribly difficult to develop alongside a solitary artist's life/style. (And, yes, I am painting with a broad brush here, so my apologies for maybe sounding super harsh).
Agree about admiring artists with great humility and vulnerability! As for why so many are selfish jerks, maybe it's endemic to professions where very, very few people succeed—but those who do are rewarded with outsize fame and money? Seems to have a warping effect on human psyches...
Yes, and I also think that solitary pursuits -- artists, academics, et al. -- lend themselves to becoming megalomaniacs because there is no sharing, no practice in the art of compromise, no answering to anyone. I worked at a college for 10 years, and trust that, like artists, something goes horribly awry, hahahahahahahaha, even when fame and money are not involved. But I agree with your comment.
It’s an interesting combination of insecurity and ego. Because artists, no matter what discipline, do walk in the shoes of those who came before. There is no way around it. Whether they look to the legacy of ideas and works or they ignore them, they will be compared. And they know it. The competition with history is fierce if you are very serious about what you do.
They as serious artists, will also need to have a bit of a ‘quirk’ in their brain to believe they CAN do it. Rise to the greatness. The Ego must be huge and small at the same time. Like a rubber band it must stretch and retract, stretch and retract. The screenshots show this dilemma.
The more I think about it, the conflict of the son is most likely a resentment for his lack of humility. The old school way of thinking ‘under the master’ is you will never supersede the Master but yet, you MUST to be great. The respect is also the poison pill. You must theoretically ‘kill’ the master to achieve your own greatness. In this sense, there is a dichotomy to the father son relationship: at first, it is to want them to succeed. But in wanting such, you ask for your own defeat.
As much as I revere Miyazaki, I feel like defending such selfishness is kind of assuming that a person themself are the sole creator of the artistic work, without any inspiration or help from outside. When we engage in any creative endeavour, we are drawing inspiration and ideas from the world around us and also the works of people who were before us. Creativity does not exist in a vacuum. On the other hand, a little selfishness is required because we need to protect the time and energy we are reserving for our creative work because it is that time which is under most attack, directly or indirectly, from other people and also from us.
Whilst in his wizened age he might appear to be jaded and negative, I (as an artist myself ) identify those qualities as one who grew up wanting to be better than their surroundings.
He frequently cited the immaturity of the media around him and wanted to reach for a deeper interpretation of experience (which sounds entirely like his criticism of Goro). But it's the implicit willingness to go beyond a comfort zone and explore his consciousness is that makes him and his movies relatable.
So whilst I appreciate the insights that you don't need to be tortured to create, being tortured through the creative process is essential to novel concept, If you're not experiencing the other side, how are you able to make definite decisions as an artist; if it's familiar it's also redundant
The line between ‘being creative’ and being a ‘fine artist’ is vast. In the middle somewhere gray is being an ‘artist’ which many are. Doing the work. Learning. Expanding. But being The One is a different story. I have a Sunday Reflections piece on this from a couple weeks ago in my stack I will have to resurface.
I was reminded of Picasso having such an unrelenting work ethic and punishing routine. He is quoted as saying. 'Without great solitude no serious work is possible.' Then it seems, his ire and treatment of anyone who interrupted his schedule were legendary. Les Egling.
Reminds me of the various accounts I have read on Picasso. Aaargh. And we are also aware in the tech world about a%^hole developers who produce beautiful work, and are utterly painful to work with. Well, I think it's kinda their cross to bear, and partly, our own, too. We are in such thrall of that kinda God-given genius that we place such individuals on a pedestal... only eager to knock them off because who wants to keep their neck craned up all the time? It's a bit of an unhealthy dynamic, and sorry, Mason! I have absolutely gone off on a tangent.
Please don't apologize, I'm really glad you made that connection between our worshipful attitude toward "geniuses" and the toxic work culture of the tech industry (and so many other industries)!
Hello! May I use one of the screen grab photo, (the one where Miyazaki looks disappointed) as a profile picture on Facebook as a protest against AI art.
About selfishness and art making, creativity? The trap is set? Would you like the long version or the very long one? Okay, the ultra short:
First of all, I believe that we are mere antennas, maybe receivers of ideas and that these are like invisible floating ghosts passing through us (all). We have the choice of grabbing them and holding on to them, with all our might, or listening to them and trying to translate them into the tangible, physical... or not.
Letting ideas pass through is nice too. Discussing ideas with others and shaping new ones is also quite pleasant. But overcoming one’s massive limitations and taking a shot at creating something really brilliant is absolutely bloody hard, in the best of times. Because the super easy things are often along a path already taken. The new stuff comes with doubts and fears and insecurities, with brambles and bears and mud. And this is also where the commercial and the free creative work overlap. (Though the commercial stuff often happens in a group, and so there it is possible to be "selfish" together.)
But in the free work, the "selfishness" is often an attempt to translate the divine into the human-made with as little of misunderstood interference as possible. "Evil is what distracts", said Kafka so precisely. And it feels true every time.
So yes, selfish, but also in the service of something far bigger and intangible. And so, not as selfish as it appears. Or at least that’s my humble observation of some of the processes.
I think some element of selfishness is required bc for instance you have to guard your time and energy- but I don’t think cruelty or dismissing others falls under selfishness per say…
I love Miyazaki’s work! This is the first time I read anything about his process, and to be honest it makes sense to me that he would be kind of excentric. Regarding the question about whether selfishness is an inherent part of the creative process, I think in some way it should be, in the sense that you have to believe in yourself and in the fact that the work you’re doing has worth. It’s just the only way you can go on writing, or at least for me it is, this blind, perhaps even irrational belief that someone out there is interested in my work just because I’m passionate about what I write. And I believe that shows in the writing as well, a confident and passionate writer draws more readers than a timid writer who doesn’t believe in what he’a writing about. I think the writer is the first person who should believe in their own work. If we don’t, who will? But that’s not to say that any kind of selfishness is acceptable. Reading how Miyazaki treats his son made me cringe. Being an “eccentric creative genius” doesn’t justify these kinds of things, and I think the selfishness I was talking about is definitely meant to coexist with compassion. Writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, is an original interpretation of the world through the writer’s eyes, which means you absolutely have to care about your subject in an honest way. I think selfishness + compassion is a potent combination for great writing.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Andrei. I appreciate your emphasis on compassion above — I think that's probably an essential component of all great art? (Though, of course, some artists seem to be lacking it in their personal lives.)
It also made me think about Elizabeth Gilbert’s ted talk and how we think of “tortured creative geniuses” and how we relate to creativity. I don’t agree with it completely but it really made me view some things differently.
I’m so grateful for your summary of the doc Mason! I feel like he could benefit from the love and compassion of a 12step program. In my humble opinion, the creative process doesn’t have to be selfish or result in the abuse (his son!) of other creators. Ultimately, creativity is a selfless act. It’s a gift we offer to the Creation. I know lots of generous, kind and incredible creators who don’t abuse themselves or others to get their wonderful work done. I feel like this doc will continue to perpetuate the myth that the artists must be tortured to create great work. That’s kind of a bummer- or maybe the youth will see the folly in his example? I hope so! We all deserve to be joyful.
P.S. It was a little reminiscent of Jiro My Dream of Sushi- with the terribly sad father son dynamic. I’m not well versed in Japanese male culture.
Thanks for weighing in, Sarah. I really appreciate your emphasis on the *joyfulness* of creativity. (Definitely something I struggle with!) And, yeah, I agree that we shouldn't be perpetuating the tortured-artist myth . . . and yet for those of us who do feel tortured some of the time, I also feel like it's comforting to see your process reflected in other creators?
(PS — It looks like your comment got double-posted somehow, so I'm going to delete the duplicate comment.)
YES.
The competition is fierce, the expectation is through the roof. And even then, it’s just plain ego.
It reminds me of beavers. Once a certain age the male son HAS TO leave home and go a certain distance DOWN stream or river because the father cannot event get a whiff of him after that or he will rip the son to shreds.
Maybe it's not actually selfish to choose to art-making over other uses of life energy — for many artists it might be better described as a stubborn devotion to their innate calling. But some degree of refusing the demands of others HAS TO BE a characteristic of any successful artist — by successful, I mean an artist who actually produces work, more or less steadily. Lacking that devotion, the world (the human part of it) would happily suck away your days, one demand after another, until there's no time or energy left for art-making.
Very very true. It is easy to give away time. For serious artists, there is never enough.
I loved watching this doco, thank you for reminding me of it! I wasn't bothered by Miyazaki's 'selfishness'. Maybe we could call it determination, tenacity, one pointed focus. As a writer I certainly found his creative process to be very real, his grumpiness, his naps and idiosyncratic habits very relatable. I was very happy to see inside his working day and process. Seeing the drawings evolve on the walls of the office was wonderful.
On one hand, I don't think selfishness is an inherently negative quality--meeting one's own needs and wants is too often dubbed "selfish" and yet is a necessary element to a healthy, balanced life whether one is an artistic genius or not. However, insensitivity seems to be directly at odds with the sensibility which is imperative to producing great art. Thus, I don't think it is a question of whether one should excuse a great artist for their humanistic lacking but rather that those who are most caring, sensitive, and pure as people are also the best--not necessarily famous, but eternal--artists.
Good points. In fact, "selfishness" may not be the right word at all — maybe "single-mindedness" is a better choice? In any case, totally agree that choosing to focus on your own projects and meet your own needs is not inherently selfish.
Yet some of the BEST art is produced by not very nice people. There are artists we love to love, and there are artists we love to hate. Often in both instances we live to love their art no matter what. We don’t reject Picasso because he was a misogynist. We don’t reject Pollock because he was a drunk. Some may question liking their art for those reasons but those that do are being subjective. The art is good. Regardless. And it was achieved BY and FOR the angst which drove it.
I've met a lot of artists that seem like selfish, narcissistic, vain, sometimes even cruel jerks (history reveals plenty of them, too). I have often wondered -- the armchair psychologist within -- if these qualities aren't more about insecurity and fear, ways of compensating; or do these qualities develop because of what it takes to live an artist's life -- which is difficult and punishing and often seemingly impossible? I don't know. I have come to really admire artists with great humility, vulnerability; people who are radically honest and kind, too. These qualities are rare in human beings, period, but seem terribly difficult to develop alongside a solitary artist's life/style. (And, yes, I am painting with a broad brush here, so my apologies for maybe sounding super harsh).
Agree about admiring artists with great humility and vulnerability! As for why so many are selfish jerks, maybe it's endemic to professions where very, very few people succeed—but those who do are rewarded with outsize fame and money? Seems to have a warping effect on human psyches...
Yes, and I also think that solitary pursuits -- artists, academics, et al. -- lend themselves to becoming megalomaniacs because there is no sharing, no practice in the art of compromise, no answering to anyone. I worked at a college for 10 years, and trust that, like artists, something goes horribly awry, hahahahahahahaha, even when fame and money are not involved. But I agree with your comment.
Yes, 100% agree
It’s an interesting combination of insecurity and ego. Because artists, no matter what discipline, do walk in the shoes of those who came before. There is no way around it. Whether they look to the legacy of ideas and works or they ignore them, they will be compared. And they know it. The competition with history is fierce if you are very serious about what you do.
They as serious artists, will also need to have a bit of a ‘quirk’ in their brain to believe they CAN do it. Rise to the greatness. The Ego must be huge and small at the same time. Like a rubber band it must stretch and retract, stretch and retract. The screenshots show this dilemma.
The more I think about it, the conflict of the son is most likely a resentment for his lack of humility. The old school way of thinking ‘under the master’ is you will never supersede the Master but yet, you MUST to be great. The respect is also the poison pill. You must theoretically ‘kill’ the master to achieve your own greatness. In this sense, there is a dichotomy to the father son relationship: at first, it is to want them to succeed. But in wanting such, you ask for your own defeat.
As much as I revere Miyazaki, I feel like defending such selfishness is kind of assuming that a person themself are the sole creator of the artistic work, without any inspiration or help from outside. When we engage in any creative endeavour, we are drawing inspiration and ideas from the world around us and also the works of people who were before us. Creativity does not exist in a vacuum. On the other hand, a little selfishness is required because we need to protect the time and energy we are reserving for our creative work because it is that time which is under most attack, directly or indirectly, from other people and also from us.
Very good points
Yes, it’s like acknowledging our ancestors. And from an Asian culture it’s surprising he is not more observant of such precedent.
Whilst in his wizened age he might appear to be jaded and negative, I (as an artist myself ) identify those qualities as one who grew up wanting to be better than their surroundings.
He frequently cited the immaturity of the media around him and wanted to reach for a deeper interpretation of experience (which sounds entirely like his criticism of Goro). But it's the implicit willingness to go beyond a comfort zone and explore his consciousness is that makes him and his movies relatable.
So whilst I appreciate the insights that you don't need to be tortured to create, being tortured through the creative process is essential to novel concept, If you're not experiencing the other side, how are you able to make definite decisions as an artist; if it's familiar it's also redundant
In other words, you DO need to be tortured to create. I thought so!
The line between ‘being creative’ and being a ‘fine artist’ is vast. In the middle somewhere gray is being an ‘artist’ which many are. Doing the work. Learning. Expanding. But being The One is a different story. I have a Sunday Reflections piece on this from a couple weeks ago in my stack I will have to resurface.
I was reminded of Picasso having such an unrelenting work ethic and punishing routine. He is quoted as saying. 'Without great solitude no serious work is possible.' Then it seems, his ire and treatment of anyone who interrupted his schedule were legendary. Les Egling.
Reminds me of this fascinating paper on the difference between giftedness and genius (https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/1996-jensen.pdf). Alexey Guzey highlights a bit about (https://twitter.com/alexeyguzey/status/980383219572006912) the genius's value system not aligning with conventional, socially acceptable norms.
Interesting! Printing this to read later. Thanks.
You may enjoy this if you haven't read: https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-we-learn-from-the-secret-habits-of-genius
Reminds me of the various accounts I have read on Picasso. Aaargh. And we are also aware in the tech world about a%^hole developers who produce beautiful work, and are utterly painful to work with. Well, I think it's kinda their cross to bear, and partly, our own, too. We are in such thrall of that kinda God-given genius that we place such individuals on a pedestal... only eager to knock them off because who wants to keep their neck craned up all the time? It's a bit of an unhealthy dynamic, and sorry, Mason! I have absolutely gone off on a tangent.
Please don't apologize, I'm really glad you made that connection between our worshipful attitude toward "geniuses" and the toxic work culture of the tech industry (and so many other industries)!
Hello! May I use one of the screen grab photo, (the one where Miyazaki looks disappointed) as a profile picture on Facebook as a protest against AI art.
Sure, go for it!
About selfishness and art making, creativity? The trap is set? Would you like the long version or the very long one? Okay, the ultra short:
First of all, I believe that we are mere antennas, maybe receivers of ideas and that these are like invisible floating ghosts passing through us (all). We have the choice of grabbing them and holding on to them, with all our might, or listening to them and trying to translate them into the tangible, physical... or not.
Letting ideas pass through is nice too. Discussing ideas with others and shaping new ones is also quite pleasant. But overcoming one’s massive limitations and taking a shot at creating something really brilliant is absolutely bloody hard, in the best of times. Because the super easy things are often along a path already taken. The new stuff comes with doubts and fears and insecurities, with brambles and bears and mud. And this is also where the commercial and the free creative work overlap. (Though the commercial stuff often happens in a group, and so there it is possible to be "selfish" together.)
But in the free work, the "selfishness" is often an attempt to translate the divine into the human-made with as little of misunderstood interference as possible. "Evil is what distracts", said Kafka so precisely. And it feels true every time.
So yes, selfish, but also in the service of something far bigger and intangible. And so, not as selfish as it appears. Or at least that’s my humble observation of some of the processes.
I think some element of selfishness is required bc for instance you have to guard your time and energy- but I don’t think cruelty or dismissing others falls under selfishness per say…
Yes, I agree!
I love Miyazaki’s work! This is the first time I read anything about his process, and to be honest it makes sense to me that he would be kind of excentric. Regarding the question about whether selfishness is an inherent part of the creative process, I think in some way it should be, in the sense that you have to believe in yourself and in the fact that the work you’re doing has worth. It’s just the only way you can go on writing, or at least for me it is, this blind, perhaps even irrational belief that someone out there is interested in my work just because I’m passionate about what I write. And I believe that shows in the writing as well, a confident and passionate writer draws more readers than a timid writer who doesn’t believe in what he’a writing about. I think the writer is the first person who should believe in their own work. If we don’t, who will? But that’s not to say that any kind of selfishness is acceptable. Reading how Miyazaki treats his son made me cringe. Being an “eccentric creative genius” doesn’t justify these kinds of things, and I think the selfishness I was talking about is definitely meant to coexist with compassion. Writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, is an original interpretation of the world through the writer’s eyes, which means you absolutely have to care about your subject in an honest way. I think selfishness + compassion is a potent combination for great writing.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Andrei. I appreciate your emphasis on compassion above — I think that's probably an essential component of all great art? (Though, of course, some artists seem to be lacking it in their personal lives.)
. . . *J*P :: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2020/06/13/books/sharing-a-house-with-the-never-ending-man-ghibli/
Ooh, need to get this book!
It also made me think about Elizabeth Gilbert’s ted talk and how we think of “tortured creative geniuses” and how we relate to creativity. I don’t agree with it completely but it really made me view some things differently.
Ooh, need to watch this.