The Paradox of the Artist/Athlete
A look at those who push past their limits
To the deep thinkers,
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I’ve always loved paradox.
The only constant is change.
Less is more.
The more you try to impress people, the less impressed they’ll be.
One paradox I’ve been obsessed with lately is the paradox of the artist/athlete. Specifically, how the spirit of the artist feeds into the spirit of the athlete. Rather than choosing to be one or the other, you become the best version of yourself when you balance both sides.
I've seen this paradox at work in my own life. The persistence needed to finish an intense workout is the same persistence that helps me during a creative project. It’s a beautiful thing—to surrender to this paradox. Unfortunately, it feels like society wants us to choose to be either an artist or an athlete.
But we can be both; in fact, we must be both.
Because when we embody the artist and the athlete—that is when we can create our best work.
Losing passion
When I was a kid I played basketball and football. I wrote stories, drew comics, and played in the school band. I pursued my passions and wanted only to do the things that I loved. However, as I grew up I began to abandon my passions one by one.
By the end of high school, I was no longer writing, drawing, or playing an instrument. I'd quit all my creative outlets to focus exclusively on basketball. I stopped viewing myself as a creative person and thought of myself as strictly an athlete.
Then a gruesome injury forced me away from basketball for an extended period, leaving me without anything to pour my spirit into. I was an athlete who was now too scared to get back on a basketball court, and I was an artist who’d convinced himself he wasn’t creative.
Life felt devoid of any meaning. I walked aimlessly without any direction or passion for anything. But things started to change in my late twenties. I began to write again, publishing some of my work online. It felt good to flex my creative muscles again. It felt…right.
Next, I decided to get back into shape. When I'd given up on sports, I lost my stamina and most of my muscle mass. So, I began to eat cleaner, developed a workout plan, and even returned to the basketball court. Things weren’t perfect, but I’d found that spark for life I’d been missing for so long.
It was the beginning of fusing my artistic spirit and athletic spirit. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was at the intersection of both that I would find my purpose again.
Sacrifice, pain, and obsession
As an artist, you can’t control whether other people enjoy your art. You can’t control whether someone will share your work. And you don’t decide if your words will resonate with anyone.
As Rick Rubin puts it in his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being:
“Most variables are completely out of our control. the only ones we can control are doing our best work, sharing it, starting the next, and not looking back.”
The same goes for the athlete. You train and push—through the pain, doubt, and stressors of your life—all while understanding that you alone can’t 100% influence the outcome of a game or competition.
In the NFL, an elite quarterback could be well-prepared and still lose if they have a lousy defense or an even lousier kicker. In the NBA, a superstar could lose in the first round of the playoffs for several factors outside of their control: their costar gets hurt, the opposing team gets hot from the 3-point line for a few games, or their coach fails to make any adjustments.
The artist and the athlete can only prepare away from the world and then let their work or their game do the talking once it’s go-time.
Likewise, the artist just like the athlete knows what it is to sacrifice. To wake up earlier than most. To be up during those hours when everyone else is lost in dreamland. They stay in while their friends go out. They follow their gut more than the advice of other people. To them what matters most is the very thing they're obsessed with—everything else must fall in place under it.
Don't let anyone shame you for obsessing over your craft. As long as what you're doing brings you joy, keep moving forward. Others won't get you. They won't understand the love you have for your art. To them, you're an alien. That's fine. Be the alien. Because I'll tell you this: Your craft is your sanctuary.
When you're alone, writing out your thoughts and feelings, when you're in the gym or on the field, training, the world goes quiet—if only for a brief period. That brief period is nirvana. It is the warm embrace of purpose—the purpose most people spend their entire lives searching for.
When you are both the artist and the athlete, you don't need to spend your whole life searching. You have what you need to bring meaning to your life. You just have to stick with it.
Find your art, find your meaning
For some, finding their art is a lifelong pursuit. For others, it's impossible to miss.
In the Information Age, there’s no lack of advice out there for the artist. Some of the advice can seem too simple. Simplicity, however, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes the best advice is simple.
Rubin has some great advice about taking the pressure off yourself.
“If you start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things. We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.”
When you get lost in your world of free play, that same joy touches those who engage with your art.
But the question remains: How exactly do you find the art that fills you with so much joy?
Finding your art takes patience. It can’t be forced and it can’t be faked. One good way of discovering your art is to look at the things you did as a child. Kids don’t care as much about metrics, followers, money, or status. We become indoctrinated to these things the older we get. Kids, however, just want to spend as much time as possible doing the things that make them happy.
What have you been obsessed with? What do you see that other people don’t see? What excites you most that others don’t seem to notice? The best artists, the best athletes—how many of them could you say weren't obsessed with their craft?
Your obsessions could hold the answers you've been searching for. The spirit of the athlete could also provide some guidance. Train your body. Run. Lift. Swim. Play a sport.
Learn to conquer the voice in your head—the one begging you to quit because it's uncomfortable. Athletics is all about learning to thrive through discomfort. You’ll have moments when you look foolish. You will lose. You could get injured and suffer a major setback. But in those dark places, you get to know the real you. This is no different from the path of the committed artist.
I'll leave you with some words to empower and encourage you:
Go beyond your self-imposed barriers. Live with ferocity and tenacity, then use those very qualities to create great art. Use them to train your body. Then return to this reservoir of inner fortitude when you're too scared to share your work or when you feel like quitting. It’s a fountain of motivation that feeds itself.
Build up your resilience until you don't even recognize yourself anymore. Until you are the embodiment of the artist/athlete. Commit to it for the rest of your life and not a single day will go by that isn't filled with meaning.
What stood out to me this week:
On oversharing:
“We share too much when we’ve been too lonely. We fail to understand the risks of over exposure when we have suffered in environments in which so little sincere or real was ever exchanged.”
- The Dangers of Oversharing, The School of Life
On dealing with anxiety:
“Embracing a mindset of profound empathy and care for others can often illuminate the path out of personal crises.”
-Alex Crystal, 50 Years with Anxiety
Often times the best medicine for anxiety is to focus on helping other people. When we do this, we can sometimes find the solution to whatever is worrying us, or sometimes it’s a healthy distraction while those unpleasant and temporary feelings come and go.
🎵Song of the week:
Stay blessed,
Thank you for your time—feel free to let me know how this post resonated with you or share it with a friend:
What a wonderful piece. I have also struggled with this push and pull before as well. My big moment was when I dislocated my shoulder in a pick up basketball game on vacation abroad (long story haha) but if meant that when I came back for baseball All I could do was run and hit. I could throw at the end of the year, but something was different. Then I went on another trip abroad that summer with a band and orchestra group, which really made me realize how much I love the arts. I ended up majoring in opera performance. It is interesting how the world thinks we have to be either/or, and can’t be both, when both are so complimentary to one another. A lot of professional athletes have artistic backgrounds. Heck, the best kicker in the NFL is also an opera singer. We should embrace the idea of being both artist/athlete!
Again, loved your piece!
Hey Jon, this is such a great piece! I love how you talked about being an artist and being an athlete together. As a writer myself, I always thought of treating it like an athlete would. I would write every single day, practice, come up with new ideas, and do anything I could to improve. I wish more writers had that athletes mentality because it would stop them from giving up so early. Thank you for posting this !Your newsletter is awesome by the way. Just subscribed! :)