Artists, Chronic Illness, and World Building
This is sort of a self serving little essay, because it’s very “woe is me” when there’s a lot of woe to go around these days. In truth, I’ve been struggling with how to write about it in a way that is at all hopeful.
Chronic illness takes so much from artists. I know because I have 4 of them and one has less than a 100 documented cases worldwide. It is lonely, draining and debilitating. So if you are an artist with chronic illness just know that you are so seen and that the way you move about the world with resilience is inspiring.
With chronic illness, some days it is literally impossible to be creative or make art. Sometimes the pain is simply too much and your obligation is to recover. The crazy part is half of the world’s population lives with some kind of chronic illness, but I rarely hear anything about it from my fellow artists cause none of us want to complain and a lot of us are working off of creative systems built for people with no chronic illness or with nearly unlimited resources. It drags so many artists into burnout.
Here are some examples:
When I don’t post everyday (even 2-3 times a day), my metrics go down. I lose monthly viewers and my chances of high visibility posts tend to go down.
BUT the result of posting everyday is: my work becomes less significant. People see it everyday and I have to rush through the creative process because chronically ill people need more rest. That’s just the reality. So we post and post and post and we burn out from the constant need for output.
This system is designed by popular apps like Instagram and TikTok that crave your attention. The more you create on their apps, the more opportunity to keep people scrolling and often times to get people addicted to these apps. The lottery system of social media is definitely an enticing concept but one that in reality, is just not sustainable.
Now that I’m an artist full time I have many friends in the artist space and I don’t want to see them quit simply because their systems aren’t built for who they are. The world does need our art because we see things from such a unique vantage point. However, this world is designed to burn artists out.
So let’s build a new one:
I think collectively, we should work towards prioritizing algorithms, apps and spaces that reward rest and time off. Whenever we have the opportunity to do that, we should.
We should filter our feeds by followers rather than “favorites or fyp” now and then. (In fact right after you read this I want you to go comment on at least 5 of your fellow creatives work. (Show them you see them and support them)
Strive to change your perception of what showing up creatively means. Give yourself options for how you want to create each day. Even rest can be creative if you let it be.
As someone with executive dysfunction, systems are my savor. If I don’t have a plan for how to show up each day, I’ll never get out of bed and to do lists are overwhelming. Systems are more fun and easier to work with. Build in grace periods for extra hard days. I’m not saying I never procrastinate or wait till the last second but I would say the systems are definitely helping me improve and grow.
Get involved with your local community. You’ll meet others who know how you feel and you’ll start to feel less lonely because of it.
The bottom line:
The key to creating through chronic illness is world building. Design a completely new system for creating, one that works for you. Remember how capable you are. To ache everyday, in both visible and invisible ways, and still find the strength to make the world a more beautiful place is a special kind of magic.
