Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

A botanist friend of Gilbert’s asks her students whether they love nature and whether nature loves them. Her students love nature but don’t think that nature loves them. Instead, they think human existence is random and not connected to the earth. They lack a relationship with the earth that Gilbert notes ancient people felt. Gilbert’s friend believes people ignore their ability to help the earth while the earth helps them.

Gilbert asks young writers whether they love writing and whether writing loves them. They usually say no; many of her students see writing as causing suffering instead. Writers, artists, and others feel suffering is important to their work, but Gilbert says it shouldn’t be. She relays an anecdote about novelist Katie Arnold-Ratliff, who became blocked after a professor told her: “Unless you are emotionally uncomfortable while you are writing, you will never produce anything of value” (207). Arnold-Ratliff felt like she wasn’t following the correct path in writing because she wasn’t suffering. She finally wrote a book she enjoyed writing and abandoned the need for suffering.

Artists commonly assume that suffering creates authenticity. This is dangerous, and can cause mental health conditions or addiction. People suffer, Gilbert acknowledges, but she does not think that artists should seek out suffering.