Christian Bale as Bruce and Michael Caine as Alfred in Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy

What is the job of the writer? What is it an author is supposed to do? If you take a look around at the industry, at the way it’s been, and even the way it’s going, one undeniable thing about writing, and art in general, is that the artist is a servant.  I know it’s a weird concept, but it seems so true. Writers are servants. We’re the used car salesman. We’re the self-employed barber struggling to make a quick buck. We’re the Alfred to the world’s Bruce Wayne. We are completely vulnerable and optimistically invincible at the same time.

So often I’m at a book signing, and I get asked by a young person, “So, you’re an author…are you rich?” I usually shrug it off with a

too many of us…

chuckle, knowing that a child will ask the most innocent and inquisitive questions just to find an answer. “Trying,” is all I usually say. Trying, such a fragile, funny word. The servant tries to be rich, tries to be the master. But can the artist ever truly be the master? Sure, the artist has “god” control over what he creates, what she sings about, what he writes, what she paints. But at the end of the day, the consumer, the “Bruce Waynes” of the world have final say as to what gets bought and what is forgotten.  We are the beginning, and they are the conclusion. Our art, our passion, our love can only go as far as the consumer wants it to go. Now, obviously, there are things that can’t be calculated like fate, divine purpose, serendipity, etc. But that which can be calculated—the acceptance factor—lies in the hands of the conclusion, not the beginning.

Just think back to all the brilliant men and women, talented people, who died penniless, practically nameless. Their only entrance into immortality were the words or pictures or ideas they left behind. So even in death, and the transition into immortality, their art becomes a new servant for a new generation to either accept or reject. So where does this leave men like me? I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes I look back on what I’ve been allowed to achieve, and look forward to what I hope to achieve, forever standing in the in between of the two realities, wondering…when? And if? And how? But maybe I’m missing the point. Great thinkers, great artists, great religious figures…they came to serve. Maybe they didn’t know it at first. Maybe it wasn’t wholly clear to them, but that was their purpose. The fact that they made a few bucks in the process, well, that was icing on the cake. The artist, the self-employed man, the struggling painter with all her talent, is here to serve. Weird concept, right? Why don’t we just do something else with our time, something else with our lives? Some have left the path. Too many rocks, too narrow.

But those who stick with it, the ones who keep the faith, who believe when the sky falls down around them…they shall inherit the kingdom of hope, of beauty, of vision. They shall enter into immortality, and the gift of being either accepted or rejected, will be theirs.

Gift? Yeah, gift. Sometimes we forget that. Sometimes I forget.

-E

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