Between rage and serenity

I’ve been noticing a pattern amongst creative and strategist types. Whenever we talk about frustrations and desires for the work we do, one topic comes up.

Anxiety.

Not the type that leaves you stressed because you have too much work. The type that seems to rip you apart every now and then. The part that you could call your ‘inner demons’. The part that makes you question your own life, not just your work. The part you wish could go away, except if it did you wouldn’t care anymore. And caring, I think, defines the best in our trade.

Does this mean that anxiety defines them too?

Martin Weigel argues that anger is part of what we do and I tend to agree:

There is, it seems, an assumption out there in adland that being ‘curious’ is a desirable quality to possess.

Or at least claim.

Particularly if you call yourself a planner or — loathsome word that it is — ‘strategist’.

Curiosity does of course, have much to recommend it.

But if you want to be a planner rather than just a finder-outer-of-stuff, if you want to do more than peddle ‘insights’, if you want to move things forwards, if you want to be leader, if you want to change the world, then simply being ‘curious’ just isn’t going to cut it.

You need to be cross.

Indignant.

Exasperated.

Angry.

Or even plain ol’ fashioned fucked off.

For curiosity is about wanting to know how things are.

It’s about wanting to look under the hood of things and discover their workings.

But being angry is about being dissatisfied with how things are.

And wanting to change them.

Now.

Being angry drives us to try something new. Something unexpected. Something radical. Something that will make your heart stop, for better and for worse. Something that might fail. Or might just succeed. And if it succeeds, great, right?

Well… Kind of.

Just this week I read a candid and powerful reflection on Dan Hon’s newsletter:

There is a thing about me where success or achievement isn’t something that can be celebrated or acknowledged in its own right because success just means… you have to succeed again. Getting past a feasibility study means there’s more pressure on the first stage of implementation. Getting past the first stage of implementation means there’s even more pressure on the second stage, and so on. Success at things isn’t a re-set with each opportunity, it’s a succession of walking on a set of finely calibrated tightrope walks, or ascending to the summit of everest. It doesn’t matter how high you’ve gotten or how far you’ve walked because the next bit — and there’s always a next bit — is always more important and invalidates everything else that you’ve done so far. It’s not like you get to walk on a tightrope or do part of an ascent and save your progress at a basecamp. It’s that each move forward is an opportunity for failure. Which, let’s be frank, isn’t a particularly compassionate way to deal with your self.

I can’t say I didn’t see myself on some (most) of Dan’s reasoning. I showed this to a few people and — surprise — they felt the same. So success, the one thing that is the end result, doesn’t seem to release us from anxiety. If anything, it tends to maintain or increase it for the next gig.

In other words, ladies and gentlemen, meet impostor syndrome.

When I say this affects creative types, I don’t just mean in advertising and marketing. In one episode for Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld invited Jimmy Fallon. THE Jimmy Fallon. And at some point, Jerry asks:

How close to the curtains opening and you walking out have you ever said to yourself, “I don’t think I can do this”?

Jimmy’s reply:

Right up to the curtain opening.

Which for me is somewhat comforting because it makes me wonder. It’s hard to question Jimmy Fallon’s success as an entertainer. And even he has his doubts right until the moment where he shows up and says, “here’s what I have for you today”.

The broader lesson for me is about understanding that we’re not alone when we feel like this. Alain de Botton once described art as a form of therapy because it helps you recognise that pain is normal. Maybe understanding other people’s success (and frustrations) can have the same effect.

Last year, Camilla Grey wrote a moving blog post about ‘The ‘A’ word’ which I read in just about the perfect time. I was going through some anxiety issues myself. Then I found that reading someone else’s thoughts made me feel… not as bad.

Just like realising that Jimmy Fallon feels this too. Just like many others are feeling it as we speak. And maybe some are talking about it. But I have a hunch that most aren’t. But maybe they should.

My favourite part in Camilla’s blog post was when she compared depression with anxiety:

If depression is like a black cloud, sucking the life force out of you, then anxiety is like fire. It has an all-consuming energy that flares through you — terrifying, overpowering and, in a pyromaniacal way, kind of impressive.

Or in other words, like anger, anxiety is an energy.

It’s hard to embrace contentment when your job is to come up with new things every single day. But maybe if we talk more about the struggles behind it we’ll be better at dealing with those inner demons. It’s not that having too much energy is a bad thing. But it’s in our benefit to learn how to channel it.

To make use of it.

To reach, quoting Charles Xavier, something that ‘lies between rage and serenity’.