Happy or Sad?

Would you mind to take a quick survey? It’ll only take a second and you’ll be entered to win a free McDouble.

Which do you consider to have more artistic potential?

A happy ending or a sad ending?

A happily married couple or a divorced one?

A beautiful woman or a faded old crone with a grudge?

A bustling city square or a ghost town?

A story about killing a dragon or a story about suicide?

A story about brotherhood or a story about racism?

The answer: I need more information. There are good and bad pieces of art that deal with all of these things. Jonah is a good story with a happy/sad ending. Pixar’s “Cars” is a story about a ghost town that bustles again.

But it’s common these days to think that evil is by nature poetic, gutsy, and profound while good is by nature kitschy, boring, and safe. To be of The Artist Type is to be a melancholy creep. The movies that win best picture every year are wrist-slitting orgies of morosity. Serious Fiction is dark fiction. Dickens is great when he describes the depths of poverty, but what’s with all the jokes?

I don’t pretend to know what got us here, I just know it’s not good.

It is possible to be happy and be an artist. It is possible to feel known and understood and still write good songs, take beautiful pictures, and craft a good story. Also, your songs and stories can have real joy. You don’t have to pretend to be miserable before you can write something good. The sad Psalms are no more “authentic” than the happy ones.

Darkness is real. Of course. But it isn’t ultimate. And it doesn’t have any authority here. Evil is the gunk that clogs up the machine. There’s nothing inherently poetic about the gunk. But knowing how gross the gunk is sure makes it feel good when you see it washed away. What’s really beautiful is watching those gears really turn.