Writing Wednesdays
Working on Two Tracks
By Steven Pressfield | Published: March 14, 2012
When we complete a work of art or commerce and expose it to judgment in the real world, three things can happen:
Vincent van Gogh, a Track #1 guy who got killed on Track #2
1. Everybody loves it.
2. Everybody hates it.
3. Nobody notices that it even exists.
All three responses present you and me—the artist or entrepreneur—with serious emotional challenges, and all three drive deep into the most profound questions of life and work.
It will not surprise you, I suspect, when I say that in my opinion all three responses are impostors. None is real, and none should be taken to heart by a professional.
When we work in any field that combines art and commerce, we’re working on two tracks. (I picture them as railroad tracks running side-by-side.)
Track #1, the Muse Track, represents our work in its most authentic, true-to-itself and true-to-our-own-heart expression.
Track #2, the Commercial Track, represents the response our work gets in the marketplace. In other words, points 1-2-3 above.
Track #2 counts for putting bread on the table and getting our kids through college.
Track #1 equates to our artistic soul.
The problem with Track #2 is that it also represents the siren song of riches and fame (or at least applause and recognition in the real world).
Did you see the post I did a few weeks ago called “Paul’s All Is Lost Moment?” My friend Paul had just finished writing a TV pilot. It was the first time he had really completed a project from FADE IN to THE END. He turned it in to a friend who is a serious producer and who was anxious to see it. Almost immediately Paul’s spirits went over a cliff.
He became depressed, anxious, irritable. He couldn’t sleep. He stopped working. He was waiting breathlessly to hear his producer friend’s response.
In other words, Paul let himself get sucked over onto Track #2, the Commercial Track.
Hollywood (or any big-buzz field like music, publishing, games, software) is a Rorschach test for the heart. Can you keep your focus where it should be? Can you find your real self and stand up for it? The dream of success/glamour/megabucks is like “dark matter.” It exerts a gravitational pull that’s so strong it can haul even the best us down into a black hole.
"Wheatfield With Crows" was not worth a sou in 1890. Today, according to Sotheby's: $35M.
What’s the antidote?
The antidote is remaining grounded on Track #1. There’s nothing wrong with success. I have no beef with cashing a check or getting a parking place with your name on it. But both will kill you if you confuse Track #1 with Track #2.
While Paul was pacing his living room, wondering if he could really kill himself by leaping out a second-story window, the real truth of his situation was this:
He had completed his first serious full-length piece of work.
He had shipped.
He had delivered.
His creative momentum was high.
The Muse was with him.
On Track #1, Paul was rolling!
But on Track #2 he was getting eaten alive (or, more exactly, he was eating himself alive.)
My advice to Paul was to start another project instamatically. In fact Paul was already working on Project #2. But he had stopped. “Get back on that sucker!” I told him.
Why is this so important?
Because getting back to work grounds us on Track #1. We pick up where the Muse left off and we keep rolling.
On the other hand, when we finish a project and stop working while we wait on pins and needles to learn the world’s response to it, we have planted our butts squarely on Track #2. Track #2 means evaluating our work (and defining our artistic selves) by the opinions of others. Nothing good ever came from that. Even success can be bad. In fact success can be worse than failure. How many actors have won Oscars in Year X, only to vanish into rehab in Year X+1?
Van Gogh was a Track #2 failure his entire life. And yet: how was he doing on Track #1? True, a century ahead of his time, but still smokin’ hot. If only he could have realized it! If only we could all realize it.
The ideal position for an artist of authenticity is when Tracks #1 and #2 coincide—when he is working his real stuff, and that stuff is finding a home in the wider world.
When an artist’s voice is true enough to his own heart and authentic enough to his own vision, Track #1 pulls Track #2 to it. Bruce Springsteen. Bob Dylan. Hunter S. Thompson.
I don’t knock Track #2, the Commercial Track. Real art can be commercial too. And I don’t overvalue Track #1, the Muse Track. If our stuff is navel-centered and obscure, it doesn’t deserve to find a wide audience.
But we lose our way when we overvalue Track #2 at the expense of Track #1. “Sunflowers” was just as great in 1889, when Van Gogh couldn’t give it away, as it was in 1987 when it sold for $39.9 million.
Whatever Track #2 fate awaits my friend Paul’s pilot, the bottom line truth is this: he knocked it out of the park on Track #1.
More on this subject next week.
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Thanks for this inspiring post.
The more you stay grounded on the track #1, the less you need the props.
You’ve put the “artist’s dilemma” in a different frame. I’ve heard it said that if Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be writing TV scripts. Actually, I heard that at least thirty years ago. Not sure what he’d be writing now. Track #2 verifies Track #1 – or at least so we’ve been led to believe. But Keats is another example of your point. Considered the least of the Romantics during his life, with only Shelley really seeing his potential, he’s now considered the greatest. Art for Art’s Sake is also a misnomer – it becomes navel lint, after all, without an audience. I’d posit there’s a “third rail” – the editor-audience. (A friend calls those who perform editorial services, including therefore reviews, curators. Perhaps it’s a better word.) We don’t create in a vacuum; we create to communicate, that is, to discover connection and significance. That requires an audience. It does NOT require Track #2. Local repertory theaters may be a good example: not commercial successes, by and large, but travels along Track #1. You “curated” Paul, you were his third rail, enabling him to get back to Track #1 and get derailed on Track #2. “Third rails” provide electric power, usually through a direct current. They are also highly charged, and therefore difficult to address. Maybe Van Gogh just needed a third rail, though good ones are hard to find.
You are so right!
Track #1 and again, and again, and again, and again…
Thanks for another excellent post. Exactly what I needed to read today.
Dear Mr Pressfield
Only yesterday, I was listening to s youn employee who is gifted in graffiti/street art and yet under pressure to follow another career set by his parents. All I could do was feel his pain. The dichotomy was there all to see, do we rejoice and follow our calling (muse) or give in to the world? Krishnamurti is the only one I know of who gallery’s this subject head on. In front a gathering of school children he listened to a young boy tormented with the choice of following one path or another set by adults. After comforting the child with loving words Krishnamurti stated that an individual has to follow their true calling, even if at the end of their lives they die in poverty. A person can die in peace knowing they celebrated their true gifts (muse). Is this easy? No way! One path is our inner passion the other worldly acceptance. These two mental illusions will continue to fight within us until we either give in and respect the muse or accept that lousy 9 to 5 job. I truly respect the artist who follows their calling, quietly without fanfare. There exists an example of a warrior in modern times.
With kind regards
Oh, how true. To know that track #2 isn’t real, and to create for art’s sake. Besides, until you ship, you won’t know what the response is anyway (if that is what you need to do, anyway.)
Perfect timing, thanks once again.
“Sunflowers” was just as great in 1889, when Van Gogh couldn’t give it away, as it was in 1987 when it sold for $39.9 million”
It depends how we define “great” or “good”. Is something good if no one buys it (or even sees it)? is something intrinsically good?
Let’s look at it the other way round: Let’s say that a painting (or a book) is considered great, and then a few years people consider it to be not good at all (due to change in fashion/taste, for example). Did that work of art stay good, depsite the fact that nobody now thought so?
Very well communicated, this can happen in all walks of life.
Bravo Steven!! Excellent article. I’ll do my best to engineer the day today balancing time between tracks properly… but promise to kick myself in the caboose if I don’t.