My simple theory about creativity and success.

Do all successful artists start out wanting to do one thing, but then become famous for something else?

I’ve had this theory for a while now, although it’s a generalization. I wonder whether everyone who’s ever been successful at something didn’t secretly start out by wanting to do something else.

For example, the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk said that he originally wanted to be a painter but that he eventually began writing, and the writing became so successful that afterwards he no longer painted. Then years later, he began sketching and painting in his journals, realizing that the painter in him had not died, but could now be combined with his words.

An example of Pamuk’s journals, where he blends sketching and writing.

Likewise, the musician Jack White recently said in a discussion at the Oxford Union that he had originally wanted to be a drummer, not a guitarist, and that he still thinks it’s funny that people praise his guitar-playing so much, but that when he plays the drums in his other bands, people just say “yeah, it’s all right.”

Another example: the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek said that originally all he wanted was to be a movie director, but when he realized that that was never going to happen, he tried his hand at philosophy instead.

These are but some of the happy accidents that show the way in which you can start out wanting to do one thing and end up becoming successful doing something completely different instead. And I’m sure that there are plenty more examples to be found.

What if all of us secretly wish we

could have been successful at something else? Is everyone secretly convinced that had things turned out differently they would’ve become a completely different person? Or is it just that we cannot ever truly set out to do just one thing? Maybe it’s just that everything always turns into something else, that we sublimate one desire into another, and this is how we become what we were meant to be. Does everyone start out wanting to become one type of person, only to find themselves becoming someone else?

Or maybe the lesson is more simple than that. Maybe we all have to start somewhere, and along the way we try new and different things, not knowing when or how what we do will resonate with others. But if we stick to it, and let go of our own expectations, simply creating what we think is right, then somehow along the way, we become exactly who we were meant to be.

Julian

Ps: This post started as a journal entry. See below.

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