In 1943, after the unexpected success of Oklahoma!, Agnes de Mille found herself disoriented. The works she believed were fine had been ignored. The one she thought merely fair was celebrated. Over a soda at Schrafft’s, she confessed to Martha Graham that she had a burning desire to be excellent but no faith that she could be.
Grahm’s response has become a great artistic manifesto:
Martha said to me, very quietly: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. 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 yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. As for you, Agnes, you have so far used about one-third of your talent.”
“But,” I said, “when I see my work I take for granted what other people value in it. I see only its ineptitude, inorganic flaws, and crudities. I am not pleased or satisfied.”
“No artist is pleased.”
“But then there is no satisfaction?”
“No satisfaction whatever at any time,” she cried out passionately. “There is only a divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
Years later, Zadie smith would write in her essay “Fail Better” that we must “resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”
At first glance, these statements seem hopeless. Divine dissatisfaction. Lifelong sadness. I must confess…life as a composer does feel that way.
Yet, both statements are strangely consoling.
The ache to be better doesn’t go away. Success does not cure it. Praise does not quiet it. If anything, the better you become, the more aware you are of all the ways you have fallen short.
Graham frames it as vocation. There is something that can only come through you. Your task is stewardship, not self-evaluation.
Smith frames it as realism. The gap between vision and execution never fully closes.
Paul writes something oddly similar in 1 Corinthians 4:3-4:
“It is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself…”
Taken together, these things are evidence you are an artist. The unrest keeps you motivated. The sadness keeps you honest.
