The (In)Compatibility of Doing Good, Pursuing Creativity & Making Money
Hello, friends.
It has been a while since my last newsletter. The past few months over this side of the screen resembled a juggler's prep for a more challenging circus show, struggling to find the agility necessary to get more-than-usual balls moving without any of them falling on the ground.
This metaphor captures the essence of today's exploration more than words can ever.
In previous newsletters, I have introduced what seems to be the double task of our coming-of-age generation. On the one hand, we are expected to cross typical rites of passage such as finding a fulfilling job or creating a successful business, mating with a decent enough human being, potentially getting married, having kids, buying a house, or insert-cliché-or-rebellious-counter-culture-alternative-of-choice. On the other hand, we are obliged to confront an unprecedented planetary crisis and our role in it.
Such an existential puzzle can be made more complex if one is animated by the arts or any kind of creative pursuit: should I apply my vital energy to doing some kind of good in the world, follow my bliss, or sell my soul to the devil to make a bunch of money to then do whatever I want (perhaps finally pursue one of the first two options)?
In the spirit of such inquiry, I interviewed Giancarlo Canavesio to unpack his rather refreshing path.
I ran into Giancarlo's profile as I found myself in a rabbit hole of Daniel Pinchbeck's digital records, finally landing in a podcast episode of Mangu.TV where Giancarlo interviewed Pinchbeck.
Giancarlo's profile intrigued me. How does a promising investment banker based in London and NYC transition into alternative film production and regenerative hospitality and agriculture? Perhaps the fact that he's the same age as my parents further sparked my interest. I'm more accustomed to interacting with settled middle-aged human beings than jester-inspired profiles who turn their life around after plant-medicine-induced spiritual awakenings.
One of the details that arose my journalistic curiosity was that Giancarlo more seriously ventured into filmmaking with Mangusta Productions around 2006 after an ayahuasca ceremony that shifted his life view, yet, he did so while keeping his investment activities on the side, at least for a couple of years.
A folk myth that often gets passed on from ear to ear is that if you want to be successful in the arts or some kind of creative pursuit (entrepreneurship included), you should give up everything to dedicate your complete focus to fulfill such ambitions. Giancarlo seems to think differently and more safely.
As Elisabeth Gilbert does. As we explore throughout the podcast episode, in her book Big Magic, Gilbert walks us through some of her life decisions as a human being with the stubborn dream of being a writer. In the book, she explains that it was clear from an early age that while it is absolutely essential to her sanity to write every day, she would never dare to stress her writing to make a living.
Throughout her 20s, for instance, as she improved her craft, she made a living waitering tables and bartending. She confides she carried around a notebook to write down ideas for her books inspired by deep thoughts she overheard from her clients' drunken confessions. The point here is that Gilbert never intended to become a published, successful, or well-paid writer. Her intention was simply to write. Period. She did what she had to do to make this a reality.
As to the matter of doing good in the world, she admits her skepticism toward creatives who are primarily moved to change the world through their creations:
Whenever anybody tells me they want to write a book in order to help other people, I always think, Oh please don’t.
Please don’t try to help me.
I mean it’s very kind of you to want to help people, but please don’t make it your sole creative motive, because we will fill the weight of your heavy intention, and it will put a strain upon our souls (it reminds me of this wonderful adage from the British columnist Katharine Whitehorn: “You can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of others.”
I would so much rather you wrote a book in order to entertain yourself than to help me. Or if your subject matter is darker and more serious, I would prefer that you made your art in order to save yourself, or to relieve yourself of some great psychic burden, rather than to save or relieve us.
Ok, so we can strive to create a career path similar to Giancarlo where we follow our creative curiosities, work to make money, and venture into regenerative projects in a parallel or asynchronous fashion, hoping to one day converge the three. Or we can listen to Gilbert's lead and become a devotional creator, making enough money to survive and create for our own enjoyment, not burdening ourselves with the task of saving the world through our creations (though, Gilbert is openly involved in multiple charitable projects when not writing books). What else?
I admit that I idealistically aspire to combine all three: pursue my creative longings, do good, and hopefully walk toward material prosperity.
Daniel Pinchbeck's work is an intriguing example of the integration of a life of service and creativity. However, I suspect he would claim he's not necessarily prosperous, materially speaking. From first-person explorations of psychedelics to more grounded investigations on how to drastically reengineer our society towards regeneration (see How Soon is Now: A Handbook for Planetary Change), Daniel embodies the archetype of the outsider artist, in the most moral sense of the term, chasing an existence of inquiry, social critique, contemplation, and self-actualization.
Similarly, though I suspect more prosperously, Krista Tippet, the founder, and host of the On Being Podcast, is a terrific case of personal talent combined with extraordinary discipline that continues to give birth to life-affirming public service. After graduating from her master's program at the Yale Divinity School, Krista had the idea to develop an oral-history project that would later evolve into a groundbreaking radio program and podcast in the US, gracefully bridging spiritual discourse with everyday affairs and hard science.
As much as I love investigating paths such as Pinchbeck and Tippet's, what I'm unsure about is whether, even if a considerable amount of human beings build a lifestyle around all three pursuits (doing good, following creativity and making money), that is enough to tackle the inertia of the environmental gloom already initiated by our species. Two reasons swirl inside my brain:
1) Even if we become more environmentally conscious in terms of how we live and work together, comfort and material prosperity, as we know it in the West, are still unsustainable at the global level (having in mind that such comforts should be equal for the eight billion human beings that exist in our planet today).
2) Even if we radically reengineer our lifestyles worldwide towards wealth redistribution, equality, and sustainability, it's already too late to reverse the mess we have collectively activated.
At the end of the day, however, I lean toward more productive approaches to life, work, and regeneration. Joanna Macy has extensively written about this in her books, including Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're In Without Going Crazy. Her thesis is that if we listen to the cry for help of our planet and do work that is contributing to the rebalancing of our living system in some kind of way, we can find a tremendous sense of purpose, more significant than any money-driving career could ever offer us. After all, we are one with the planet.
Few people seem willing to directly and exclusively engage in environmental activism, though. A useful in-between are examples of responsible initiatives and enterprises such B-Corp, Tony Chocolonely, Patagonia, and so on. I have worked on some myself, as some friends do. Overall speaking, from my biased research samples, people who work with or founded social businesses seem to be one of the happiest psychographics. I hope to return to this topic in future newsletters and podcasts.
Anyhow, our worlds and longings and chances and opportunities are too relative and context-specific to make any universal, yes-or-no conclusions about what is possible or not possible when it comes to building a personal and professional life where doing good is compatible with pursuing our creative curiosity and making money.
As usual, I would love to listen to your thoughts and experience on this.
Warmly,
Carlota
P.S. I intend to re-commit to a monthly frequency from this newsletter on. I'm currently on the search for new voices and themes. Please leave a comment or send me an email with your suggestions on what to investigate next.