“Make Good Art”
Three lessons from Neil Gaiman’s legendary commencement speech.
I’m very selective when it comes to determining a great commencement speech. Like a good essay, it must provide new insight, have an element of reward (something memorable, actionable, and/or inspiring), and perhaps most of all, relevant to who it’s for. For graduation speeches, the audience, for the most part, are young people about to embark on a new adventure. The creativity is in finding a connection that’s neither cliche or passé and has the potential to be timeless.
Tough, yes. But it’s possible.
My favorites are David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water,” Jonathan Franzen’s “Pain Won’t Kill You,” and Neil Gaiman’s “Make Good Art.”
Why I love “Make Good Art” is because it’s provided me with relevant advice as I grow as an artist, and as a young person with a dream. Here are the excerpts that have been most impactful to me (and why):
Make good art.
Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.
Make good art.
This spoke to me because art is the one common denominator in my life. I do my best to consume, communicate, and create good art as much as possible. But like most, I find it difficult to focus on creating when things go wrong. Right this moment, it’s been hard for me to write because I’m going through a very difficult and painful time in my life. But perhaps a more honest reason is that I’m scared. I’m scared to put my thoughts on paper, as I refuse to relive the pain and I’m afraid of what it might do to me as I recreate my reality in prose. But the truth is it only gets tougher as I put it on hold. I start feeling guilty because I have this amazing opportunity to create, one I could use to reveal something about myself in its rawest form, and perhaps help others connect with something that they too may be familiar with.
So with this advice, it reminds me to always strive to make good art, regardless if life is fine and dandy, or downright brutal. It would only yield my truth, and imprint this moment in time in the lens of my art as only I know how to do it.
Expose your heart.
The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.
Vulnerability is something I’m still foreign with. I’ve had much resistance against it because I’ve largely been a private person most of my life. But this made me realize that the best art always reveals something about the artist. It speaks of their imaginations, or opinions, or beliefs. But no matter what, they’ve managed to make it an extension of who they are.
To show vulnerability is to show the beauty of art, and in turn the beauty of humanity; the truth about our pains, our struggles, our joys. To remind all of us that perhaps we’re not all so different from each other after all.
“You should enjoy it.”
That was the hardest lesson for me, I think: to let go and enjoy the ride, because the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places.
And lastly, what I loved the most is Neil Gaiman sharing the best piece of advice someone had given him. It was from Stephen King: “This is really great. You should enjoy it.”
We’re often caught up with life’s ills, pressures, and anxieties, that sometimes we forget to enjoy it. At least I do. I worry much about what’s next that I fail to see the brilliance of the present moment. But as I’ve begun to realize: every moment is beautiful in its own way. No matter how joyful, painful, bright, or dark. Because it is all part of the mosaic of this grand, yet ephemeral thing called life.
So that’s that. The lessons I will try to remember: Make good art. Expose my heart. And enjoy it. As Neil Gaiman suggested, maybe it would help me “leave the world more interesting for (my) being here.”
I sure hope so.
