What Happens to Your Art When You Die?
Stieg Larsson wrote one of the most popular book trilogies of all time. Stieg Larsson, doesn’t know that. That’s because after delivering the manuscripts for the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, he died suddenly of a heart attack in 2004. The first book wasn’t published until 2005. He has no idea his books would go on to become a cultural phenomenon, sell over 80 million copies, and be adapted into multiple films.
20 years removed from his death, most people don’t even remember Stieg Larsson. The cultural impact of his novels has dwindled. You probably didn’t realize that the name of the series isn’t “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy”... it’s the “Millenium Trilogy”. This is normal, the culture inevitably moves on to focus on the next big thing.
This isn’t just beholden to authors either. This applies to painters, directors, actors, musicians… everyone. Art and artists will be forgotten. Even if you are one of the rare few whose name continues to permeate the culture after you die, what does that even mean? Besides the fact that he painted the Mona Lisa, what else do you know about Leonardo Da Vinci? How many of his other paintings can you name? Probably not many and he’s one of the most famous artists ever. This begs the question, what’s the point in even creating if odds are what you make won’t be remembered by the next generation?
You’re Gonna Die One Day
Death is weird. The idea that one day it all just comes to an end is hard to wrap your head around. Everyone grapples with mortality in their own way but even if you’ve come to terms with the fact you’re going to die; nobody wants to die. Unfortunately, unless you can find the fountain of youth, you won’t live forever… or will you?
Thanks to the internet your content is eternal. The YouTube video you upload next week is going to be able to be seen for the rest of time. Future generations will be able to watch your content, engage with it, and build a relationship with you. But it’s not you. You are not your content. People view art as a way to leave a legacy and immortalize themselves but that’s not how it works. The moment you release something, it is no longer yours. It now belongs to the world who will experience it and interpret it in ways you can’t control.
Wanting to leave a legacy is just a reaction to the discomfort of the fact that you’re going to die one day. Humans have always been concerned with what we leave behind, it’s the reason we name our children after ourselves, have statues built, and make art. We’re hard wired to want to leave a legacy, which is fascinating because not only are you unable to control it, you won’t be around to experience it. But, if the idea of you never dies, do you?
Yes.
Stieg Larsson wasn’t resurrected when his books surpassed 80 million copies sold. You don’t get to find out what happens to your art after you die. Leonardo Da Vinci has no idea that the Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world. It didn’t become a worldwide phenomenon until it was stolen in 1911 and he died almost 400 years before that.
This isn’t meant to be nihilistic. The takeaway here isn’t that you’re going to die one day so your art doesn’t matter. It does. But if your goal is to use your content as a means of escaping death… it won’t work. The goal of your art isn’t so you can be remembered, it’s to share ideas into the world that create a ripple effect across generations. An artist doesn’t just create for fame and attention, they create because they have something to say.
“A thousand years from now, nobody is going to remember us. But they may remember somebody that we have remotely influenced, or that we’ve influenced somebody that influenced that person. We create a continuum of ourselves, our principles, and our ideas.” – James Cameron
What Do You Have to Say?
A good story isn’t just about what’s on the surface, there’s a meaning behind it. It presents a complex idea in a way that is entertaining and digestible. After all, that’s why we started telling stories in the first place, to make sense of the world and pass on ideas from one generation to the next. Universal truths of the human condition were relevant yesterday, are relevant today, and will still be relevant tomorrow.
The problem is stories today don’t have anything to say. They’re not focused on ideals or timeless principles, they’re focused on the self and the sensational. They’re told to generate profits, and garner fame and attention. This isn’t to say that your art shouldn’t make money. You can make something great that nobody watches and you can also make something bad that everyone watches. But why not strive to make something great that everyone watches? Art that is good and taps into universal truths should be loved universally.
“I’m of the belief that if you continue to endeavour at your highest priority, no matter what, is to do something good – that more or less is commercial. It doesn’t mean I’m obtuse to ideas like there’s a bigger audience for action movies than there is for small dramas. $120M for Armageddon and $18M for Good Will Hunting — I sort of get that. Certain genres play more broadly, you can’t not be mindful of that. But any of those genres of movies can be better — that would be my argument. But let’s do a good one. Let’s make it smart. Let’s have it be interesting. Let’s surprise the audience. Let’s make them care about it. I know you can get people to watch people shooting each other and things blowing up because they’re stoned, it’s two in the morning, and they’re flipping through Netflix. But let’s aim a little higher than that! Let’s try to find something that people remember 20 years later.” – Ben Affleck
An artist uses their work as a form of expression. What are you trying to express with your art? Do you even have anything to say or do you just want to be heard? That question isn’t meant to be accusatory, it’s something to think about. But finding time to think is hard to do in a world that moves so quickly. There’s an expectation as a modern artist that quantity matters. That if you don’t post all the time, you’ll be forgotten. But this mindset can lead to a diluted body of work and a high likelihood of burnout. We have become so focused on releasing work into the world as fast as possible that we’ve stopped asking ourselves questions like “why am I making this?” and “what am I actually trying to say?”
In a world where you’re expected to post all the time, you’ll feel compelled to do nothing but create. But the thing is if you spend all of your time creating you’ll have nothing to say. It’s important that you live your life to form the opinions that you express through your work and that won’t happen if your entire life revolves around your content. For an idea to truly last, it has to be bigger than you, it has to be able to survive for a thousand years, and you won’t find those ideas in the edit bay.
You’re Thinking Too Small
Trying to come up with something new to say in every piece of content is hard. You shouldn’t do that. Your aim should be to have a clear set of values and beliefs that is reflected throughout everything you make.
On the surface, the Avatar movies are about giant blue aliens on a far away planet. But if you dig just below the surface, there are very clear messages around climate change, deforestation, indigenous rights, and ocean conservation. This isn’t an accident, James Cameron, the films’ director, is a ferocious environmental advocate. In addition to founding the Avatar Alliance Foundation which takes action on climate change, deforestation, indigenous rights, and ocean conservation, he is a member of the International Science Council’s Global Commission on Science Missions for Sustainability, committed to making the Avatar sequels’ production as green as possible, and went vegan as a form of sustainability. James doesn’t have to sit and think about what to say in each of his movies, he has such deep, entrenched values that they will manifest in everything that he makes.
In the digital world, there’s no better example of this than Yes Theory. What started as a YouTube channel about getting out of your comfort zone has evolved into a community, a clothing line, a card game, a meditation app, live events, a book, a podcast, a feature film, physical spaces and more. Regardless of the medium, seeking discomfort is at the core of everything they do. They know that if they truly want to inspire people to seek discomfort for centuries, then they need to speak to the world in every way possible… including, through future generations.
“The way I think about it is it's a thousand year long project. How can this be something that in hundreds of years if not a thousand years is something that has actually come and contributed very positively to the planet… To build something at the scale that will have this longevity it can’t be just one man's vision, it has to be a full collective of people.” – Ammar Kandil, co-founder, Yes Theory
Turning a YouTube channel into a movement and a film into a foundation to protect the planet are big ideas and that’s the point. If you truly want to impact the world for a thousand years, you need to think in thousand year timelines. Trying to make it on the New York Times Best Seller list or get 1M YouTube Subscribers are not thousand year visions. Think BIGGER than that. If people aren’t laughing at your goals then they aren’t big enough. Wanting to influence generation upon generation for a millenia is audacious, therefore your goals should be as well.
With Great Power…
The videos you share on the internet have power. They have the ability to shape people, shape culture, and shape the world — now and in the future. There’s a level of responsibility that comes with that, that most people aren’t thinking about. It’s easy to get caught up looking at the number on the screen and forget that each and every view is a person in the world who is going to take in what you have to say and let it influence their worldview.
People talk about the butterfly effect as it applies to time travel but what about the butterfly effect of your content? If your message is impactful enough, it could change how someone views the world – it could even change how they act. And if it changes how they act, it could change the trajectory of their lives. And if it changes the trajectory of their lives, it could lead to them impacting those around them. And if they impact those around them, it could change how those around them view the world – it could even change how those around them act… The cycle goes on and on. Your ideas continue to ripple from one person to the next, from generation to generation. You’ve changed the world all because one person decided to consume your art one day.
You don’t have to stop at one person either. Thanks to the power of the internet, your message can be seen by a lot of people. This cycle of changing someone’s world and then changing it for those around them can happen again, and again, and again. The goal of your art isn’t to build your legacy, it’s to build a movement. To rally like-minded people around an idea so strong that it lasts for centuries. You can’t do that on your own, though. You won’t be able to carry the torch forever, and you can’t hand it off either. But what you can do is use it to spread the flame, to ignite the fire inside those who will push the idea into the world after you’re gone.
If it’s not clear… the torch is your art.