“I learned this from Robert McKee. A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.
The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he’s superior to them. The truth is, he’s scared to death of them or, more accurately, scared of being authentic in front of them, scared of writing what he really feels or believes, what he himself thinks is interesting. He’s afraid it won’t sell. So he tries to anticipate what the market (a telling word) wants, then gives it to them.
In other words, the hack writes hierarchically. He writes what he imagines will play well in the eyes of others. He does not ask himself, what do I myself want to write? What do I think is important? Instead, he asks, what’s hot, what can I make a deal for?
The hack is like the politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He’s a demagogue. He panders.”― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle
I read this quote recently from “The War of Art” when preparing to interview Steven Pressfield, and it floored me. (Make sure you check the episode out, it was incredible!)
It made me think about the times I’ve been a hack. It made me reflect on how much our (my) creativity can be stifled when the purpose of creating is to get the audience to “like” what we’re (I’m) creating.
It is no different than dawning masks to maintain connection, and selling out what truly wants to flow through us, whether that’s the spoken word, a piece of writing, or something we’re creating with our hands, to be liked by someone, or an audience.
Early in my days on social media, I remember thinking about what I wanted to post that day… At the time, which is largely still true today, if you wanted a post to crush, you just had to write about female empowerment, a woman dawning a sword and slaying the patriarchy… spreading her wings and rebelling against the establishment.
All those things are of course great. But I remember thinking to myself, “Is that what I want to post? Is that what I want to say? Or is that what I know will perform well?”
I committed that day that I would always post what I wanted to say, not what I thought people wanted to hear.
Well, when I look back, I feel like I’ve broken that commitment many times over.
This post is partially an excision of my shame, AND, it’s a continued commitment to healing, growing, and fucking owning the ways I (and all of us) can leave our integrity in the pursuit of the illusion of cohesion. I say illusion because friction avoided outside of us just gets internalized. You swallow the conflicts you avoid, and your body expresses that conflict in inflammation.
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