It Is So Much Easier to Not Make Things

It Is So Much Easier to Not Make Things

It’s December. I’m back to putting on a show. I’m doing all the things you have to do to make a show happen. I’m getting a team together. I’m casting actors. I’m writing a press release. I’m crafting a marketing strategy. And at a every inflection point, I think, “Golly this is hard.” I think, “Why did I get myself into this?” And at every turn in the road, I think, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just not?” At every mile marker I feel sure I’ve made an irreversible mistake and failure is inevitable.

The fact is, it WOULD be easier to just not. It’s always easier to not do than to do. Always! (Well, almost always.) It would be nice if the arc of the universe bent toward justice but it seems more accurately to bend toward inertia. It is really quite remarkable anyone makes anything at all! I have renewed admiration for anyone who ever had an idea and then DID it. It is so much easier to have an idea and then just sit around hoping something will happen with it. That is what most people do. And the reason that is what most people do is because it is incredibly much easier.

I make things all the time but mostly I do them by myself in a structure that doesn’t require me to do a lot of the extra challenging stuff. With things like writing and learning new songs, I have created a structure such that I don’t have to overcome inertia every time I do them. I have practices and regular routines that make those kinds of makings relatively easy. Because, while it is easier not to make most things, I find it very hard to not make anything at all. I understand this is a contradiction. But not all making is alike.

Sometimes when you’re making, you can just keep making because once you’ve dug the trench for the water, it can mostly just keep flowing. The trouble comes when you’re trying to make something new, where no trench has previously been dug. That’s when you realize how much easier it is to NOT make something.

And the thing of it is, most things in the world are not made by one single person deciding to make a thing. Most things tend to be variations on things that have been made before. That is, there are systems in place to join in on and do, along with the many others who have done it before. No one has to dig a trench; the water is already flowing.

That’s why it’s easier to put on The Olympics than it is for a single artist to put on a small show. The Olympics doesn’t depend on one person to make it go. The most key person in the producing of the Olympics could get sick and step out and we would still have the Olympics but if I stop pushing my show up the hill, it’s going to roll back down over me. And more significantly, it will not happen. The ways it would be easier not to bother are legion.

You may wonder why do such things if they’re so hard. Sometimes I wonder that too! It would be easier to NOT do things or even to do things that are already in motion, maybe get on the team for producing the Olympics somewhere and just be carried along by the rushing water of a giant thing in motion.

But I guess there is something very special about making something, even if it isn’t easy. I bow to everyone who has chosen to make something, particularly art, with no previously forged path, with no precedent, no trench already dug. It is so much easier not to and I have new found appreciation for everyone who does those things anyway.

“Oh,” you think, “they’re just dancing on the street, maybe even in their street clothes. This was possibly pretty easy to do!” I know nothing about this piece but I guarantee you it would have been easier not to!

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Originally published at http://artiststruggle.wordpress.com on January 24, 2024.