Why is passion so important in creating art? (Patreon)

Recently, I was sent an email by someone who asked me, "...in one of your videos, (To become an Artist part 1 of 3), you talk about how you had this mindset of choosing to do art because you wanted to be good at something. You go on to say how you believe, or believed, that this is a bad mentality.  
Why, in your opinion, is this bad?"

I wrote a pretty long reply, and wanted to post it here in case anyone else wanted to know my answer, so here it is:

"I haven't really changed my idea that it's not a good mentality or a good enough reason to pursue art, but I say that while still pursuing art, so I don't wanna seem hypocritical but maybe more cautionary.  

I think everything you mentioned (about wanting to do something meaningful and productive) is fine, and I have those thoughts too.  And I'm not saying, "Do not go into art whatever the case".  I think it just makes things much much harder.  

Succeeding as an artist is not an easy thing...  There is so much competition, and the skills you need to attain are so high...  You need to put in a LOT of work into developing.  But what fuels that work?  You could say, "willpower"...  But it's often not enough.  Especially when you are years into studying and working to improve...  If it's all willpower, it's a super steep hill to climb.  Because the energy you get from willpower depletes you.  Passion, however, enriches you.  You gain energy.  So it comes down to an energy management issue.  Do you, working with willpower alone, have enough energy to compete against someone who has the same amount of willpower, but also has passion?  

If art is all you ever want to do, and you love it, that means the act of studying and practicing isn't going to wear you out.  If you don't have this, it will wear you down, and what happens when you finally are worn out?  How can you continue?  When you factor in an additional element, that you create better work if you are passionate about it, it further skews the equation.  If you don't have passion, you're not going to be making as good work.  You also will be losing much more energy.  But your competition are people who love doing it.  

The worst thing is, you can easily slip into self hatred.  When you see other people say, "I just work hard" and yet they are passionate, it's easy to feel like you're just "not working hard enough".  But that's not really the case.  Because for the passionate people, their workload is actually a lot less.  I used to hear this a lot, that I needed to work hard...  But when I actually talked to these 'hard working' artists, I found they weren't necessarily working harder than I was.  But they weren't as fatigued.  They weren't close to burn out.  They didn't hate themselves.  In a lot of cases, they weren't even more precise about what they were doing.  The thing is, the work they were doing wasn't so bad...  As in, they didn't have to endure or suffer as much, since they were working toward something.

It's much easier to strive toward a goal, than it is trying to run away from something you don't want.  Running away, it's hard to know where you're going...  You can move forward, but it's hard to know when you've reached your goal, or even if you're getting closer...

There's also the element of talent, which is not something one can completely ignore, especially as you get higher in your skill.  I think it's very important to realize (or maybe just believe) that you are probably talented in some thing.  If you can figure out what that is, what is easier for you than the average person, then you can start to harness that, and put it to work for you.  It's also why I'm slightly opposed to always being out of your comfort zone.

It's such a common phrase to hear people say, "Get out of your comfort zone."  I heard that when I was starting out, and thought I had to never be comfortable, and I always needed to be working doing things I wasn't comfortable in, because that meant I was learning.  I think it would be much better advice to say, "Stay about 80% in your comfort zone, and 20% out of it.  That ensures you will always be learning, but you will also be displaying and increasing your strengths."  

I am 'talented' at drawing expressions.  It's something I do naturally, and also have always been better than average at.  It's something I like doing too.  But because it was always easy for me, I spent most of my time not drawing that, or looking down on it.  If it was easy, surely it wasn't worth much.  Anyone can draw expressions well, right?  I was wrong about that.  It's actually quite rare to be able to draw expressions well.  If I focused more on my strength, rather than only hunting down my weaknesses, I'd have been investing my time much more wisely.  

Sometimes you can be talented in something you don't really wanna do.  And you may not be as good in things you do want to do.  For example, you could have tiny hands, but a huge lung capacity.  Maybe playing piano would be hard for you, but playing a saxophone would be much easier.  But maybe you don't like how saxophones sound...  That's another "unfair" part of life, but as Tommy Wiseau would say, "That's life."  

For me, I'm not entirely happy with what I'm talented in, but I've learned that I prefer the results of pursuing what I have a talent in.  It's taken a long time to realize that I'd rather make good art, that other people appreciate, but that I'm not super into personally, than art I am sort of into, but am not doing that well.  I think it's something everyone has to make a judgment on though.  I wouldn't blame someone who stubbornly pursued what they like, but I do think life for them will be harder.  

So, I have pushed myself more toward things I'm passionate about, and things I'm more talented in, and it has made a difference.  First, I had to learn what I was passionate about, and that took a long time.  I also had to figure out what my talents were...  But after that, I found that studying wasn't as hard anymore.  I wasn't getting as drained, and could put in more work with the same amount of energy.  I also started improving more...  What it really did was open my eyes to how much of a handicap I had been working with.  If I had more passion, and more stamina, it would be even easier.  I would be able to work even longer...  

So what happens is the people at the top, who love art, and are enriched for it (the ones that say they'd be happy if you left them in a room with a paper and pencil and they could draw all day), do work hard.  But their hard work is not nearly as difficult as the work that people without passion have to do.  But because they don't know the difference, they assume it is.  

It's not hard to imagine, if you had a plate of your favourite food, how hard would it be to eat that?  But if you had a plate of food you hated, how hard would it be to eat that?  If you're neutral toward the food, it's still a lot harder to eat than someone who loves the food.  Yet, all that gets said is, "You have to finish the food on your plate".  It may be food you hate and it may be food they love, but no one will care about that, they will just care about how many plates of food you've eaten.  

So it's really an uphill battle, and it's really not "fair".

For people who might tell me that, "Well, you're just not suited to be an artist", I would still pursue art, because out of all the alternatives, it still seems better.  But what I would do differently is try harder to find what I was passionate about and understand that I will do much better with things I like, and that art isn't about forcing yourself to do work you hate in order to build fundamentals.  It's to pursue the things you like, and the fundamentals aren't so bad, because they enable you to do what you want to do."

I hope this helps, and thanks for reading.