Desperately Seeking Rejection

I've been depressed as hell the last week or so, which has resulted in a falling-off of blogging activity. My book is finished and published. Now comes the task of flogging it, selling it, marketing it, promoting it--and the prospect makes me feel ill (in fact, I do feel physically under the weather today). I have long believed that wherever art meets business the interface is particularly abrasive. True art, I believe, springs from an irresistible compulsion to express one's personal vision of existence. I suppose one could say that business is also a compulsion to express one's vision. The difference, for me, is that with true art making money is never the primary motivation; with business making money is the whole point. 

But the artist has to eat and pay the rent! The temptation to conform, to compromise, to make palatable, to COMMERCIALIZE, is always beckoning. The more these siren calls are listened to, the more the art suffers. Commercial art is an oxymoron.

I once asked a successful screenwriter, "What if my script presents love as the solution to our problems but during the production the studio decides to change my message to 'killing is the solution'?" His answer? "Well, you got your money." 

To me true art is the honest--as fearless as possible--expression of the artist's take on reality.

Now Katie and my work--a philosophy of life is also art--says that we're all insane, that none of us have free will, and that we all hate ourselves. This is not an easy "sell." The last thing most people want to face is the idea that they're not in their right minds, not in control of their lives, and hate themselves. We have presented our ideas to quite a few "open-minded" people and I have yet to hear even ONE person say, "I get it! I'm not in control of my life, I see that my 'insecurities' arise from deeply suppressed self-hatred (born of not really knowing who or what the fuck I am!), and I'm literally insane for imagining myself 'happy' and content and satisfied with the way my life is!"      

Someone said, "If people agree with you you can't be ahead of the curve or revolutionary or original." True art requires the balls to starve if needed. Many have done so. 

Art is a communication. The communicator hopes, of course, to be understood, to be appreciated, to make a difference in the world. 

When you're ahead of your time you must expect little in the way of encouragement. Not to mention that artists are also encumbered with self-hatred, doubts, and madness, and can, as a result, become perversely addicted to rejection. After all, if I hate myself as a fraud and a loser, why should I be allowed success or recognition? And then the rejection feeds my insecurity: maybe I'm not on the cutting edge; maybe I'm self-deluded (aka full of shit). 

I once wrote, "Artists are usually discovered after their deaths because they are no longer around to sabotage their own careers." I speak from experience. I'm just becoming aware of how very much I've actively sought rejection.

I just realized that what I seek is confirmation of my story (the way I see myself). My story is that I am a loser unworthy of success.

My story says that I have always been rejected and always will be. So I seek/see rejection everywhere. Then another aspect of my story kicks in: "When I'm rejected I should just quit in protest."