Discovering the Place Where Your Art, Well-Being, & the World’s Hunger Meet

In a sense, there is a single answer to all artists’ challenges, whether creative, existential, financial, physical, emotional, or spiritual. To borrow the words of Frederick Buechner in his classic “Wishful Thinking, ” it is to discover your artistic purpose, the place where your art, well-being, and the world’s hunger meet.[1] Energized by your artistic purpose, you will have access to a deeper source of creative inspiration, one capable of bringing you great fulfillment as you face life’s inevitable challenges. Where does your artistic purpose come from and how can you learn to fulfill it?

Your artistic purpose is intrinsic to your deepest self, the self that goes beyond what Alan Watts called “the skin-encapsulated ego” and which extends to include all of life and, ultimately, the whole universe. As such, discovering the precise nature of your artistic purpose requires making space for those desires within you that look beyond the imperatives of the lesser gods. Neither the pursuit of money, professional advancement, technical achievements, nor fame constitute your artistic purpose. Neither does a mere hobby; your artistic purpose must align with where your greatest gifts and skills lie. While egoic and personal desires have their place, none carries sufficient Soulforce to truly bring you, your art, and thus your world, more alive.

Your artistic purpose is a kind of mission, task, or transformation that is yours to fulfill. In adulthood, it is often revealed as you heal certain childhood wounds. Though painful, undergoing these wounds is a necessary precondition to having a worthy purpose. The skills and awareness you gain in your subsequent healing process are what become your greatest assets in helping others heal from similar wounds. You’ve probably already noticed this at work in your life. What do people most often ask you for help with? What do you find yourself doing, no matter where you go? What are the themes that come up in your art, again and again? What are causes or events that, perhaps inexplicably, call to you at a visceral level? These are clues to the mission that contains your Soulforce.

Energized by your artistic purpose, your art will take on a whole new level of transformative potential. Inspired by the experiences and skills of your own healing and growth, your art will go well beyond what is nice, technically advanced, or the merely self-expressive. Instead, it will act as a beacon or a catalyst that speaks to the areas of needed healing and growth in the people around you. Witnessing your art have this transformative effect is the very definition of a fulfilling creative life.

Embracing your artistic purpose can sometimes be challenging. For one, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the needs of the lesser gods. It exists for its own sake. Thus, given how closely the lesser gods are tied with survival in our society, stepping into your purpose can bring up intense uncertainty and fear. Moving through this fear, however, is the price to be paid for a life full of Soulforce. When it comes up, welcome it. Learn from it. Then let your creativity extend to discovering new ways of meeting your survival needs that don’t depend on you staying small.

The challenges continue. To the mind of separation, following your artistic purpose can seem like the height of selfishness, laziness, or irresponsibility. After all, following your purpose often feels very pleasurable and effortless, and involves doing things just for their own sake. The fullness of this pleasure often stands at odds with the rat race in which we live, which depends wholly on a form of self-denial that ruins the very thing it purports to ensure. What kind of retirement would you enjoy, for instance, if the career that preceded it left you chronically unable to appreciate your life as it is?

The truth is that a certain selfishness, laziness, and irresponsibility is a useful antidote to this form of self-denial. It opens a space for the life-giving wishes that are often forgotten in the rush to keep up with the rat race. From that open space, you may notice that your deepest wishes rest on a profound truth: that the self towards which you could be selfish is much grander than you previously thought. Any selfish behavior that previously caused harm was selfish towards an illusory separate self. In the light of interbeing, however, you finally see that there is no real separation between you and what you thought was other. You see that what you do to others you do unto yourself. You see that anything you do to help yourself flourish helps others flourish, and vice versa.

Thus, far from being an act of potential harm to your future or those around you, enjoying the fulfillment of your artistic purpose is potentially your greatest contribution to a world being destroyed by the insatiable hunger of our society’s rat race. Your aliveness is a balm to this hunger, providing the very qualities necessary for our society’s transition to a more life-giving way of being.