The ZENish View of Artistic and Creative Angst

We creatives are our own worst enemy - but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash

Every writer, artist, and creative person experiences a crap ton of suffering and artistic angst.

Why do we artists suffer so much? 🤷🏼‍♂️

• Are we gluttons for punishment?

• Do we somehow bring it on ourselves?

The short answers to these questions are “no,” and “yes, absolutely.”

• No, we aren’t gluttons for punishment, but it sure feels that way sometimes, right?

• And, yes, we do bring it upon ourselves.

Artistic and creative angst is an inside job and has nothing to do with anyone else but the person in our mirror

As humans, we walk through our lives interpreting the world through our five senses and also through our minds. As creative humans who write, draw, paint, work in mixed media, etc., we share a tendency to experience negativity and self-judgment more than the average Joe and Josephine.

Bonnie Myotai Treace, writing in her book Zen Meditation for Beginners: A Practical Guide to Inner Calm, posits that we are responsible for our suffering…not so coincidenta…