Welcome Divine Dissatisfaction
It’s part of the creative process
I’ve always been dissatisfied with my playing. For years I saw this as a problem. Now I see it as a core feature of the creative process — not a bug.
This revelation came not from a guitar player but a dancer — Martha Graham.
In her biography of Martha Graham, the dancer Agnes de Mille recalls a conversation she had with Graham. “I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent,” deMille said, “but no faith that I could be.”
This seems ironic, given that De Mille choreographed the musical Oklahoma!, which ran for 2,212 performances.
Here’s what Graham said in response:
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
Wow. This lightens the load considerably.
I don’t ever have to be satisfied with my playing. My job is just to “keep the channel open” — to keep playing. There is no end point and no destination, no point at which I will finally get it “right.” The “blessed unrest” I feel — that my playing is never as good as I want it to be — is what keeps me learning. It’s what keeps me alive.
Guitar players have so much to learn from other artists, by the way — dancers, visual artists, poets, novelists, and more. All of us are engaged in the same universal and mysterious process — the act of creating.
For a lovely take on this conversation with lots of context, see this by Maria Popova.