As A Creator, What Does It Mean To Choose….
Titian, Sisyphus,1548–49, Oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid
Welcome! It's Thursday, September 25th, 2025
"After all we've been through together, you're choosing someone else?"
You know that feeling?
You were chosen for a design project or exhibition, you created something filled to the brim with your heart, soul, and expertise, it was successful - but for reasons unknown to you, the client, gallery owner, or agent doesn't work with you again?
The sting of it. Your mind immediately takes inventory - what did I do wrong? Was my work not good enough? Did they find someone better, cheaper, more... something?
Feel a little used?
"Maybe I'm not good enough" starts to grow around my psyche. It creeps along slowly smothering the light.
I’ve been easily offended, but mainly insecure, when an interior design project was modified, edited, torn down, or I wasn't chosen for a client's newest space or second home.
It's a false sense that anything you build or create should last forever.
It can.
But it doesn't mean it will.
When I bumped into a concept by Albert Camus over the last two weeks, I could sense I was about to go on an existential ride relating to meaning and purpose….and ego.
I'll explain below.
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Let's go WAY back to Sisyphus
The myth of Sisyphus reaches back over 2,800 years, first appearing in Homer's epics around the 8th century BCE (although the myth had been passed down orally centuries before).
The myth wasn't one person's invention. It was a story that evolved because it captured something essential about the human condition that resonated across generations.
Sisyphus was a king of Corinth in Greek mythology, known for his cunning and trickery.
He had a rap sheet:
He betrayed Zeus's secrets
He chained Death itself (Thanatos) so no one could die
He tricked the gods of the underworld multiple times
Most famously, he escaped death twice through clever schemes
His Punishment: The gods condemned him to push a massive boulder up a mountain for eternity. Every time he neared the summit, the boulder would roll back down, and he'd have to start over. Forever.
Colossal Krater, c. 350 BC, from Altamura, showing Sisyphus at bottom center.
National Archaeological Museum of Naples
Why This Punishment?
The gods considered it the most dreadful punishment: futile and hopeless labor. They believed nothing is more terrible than work without purpose, without progress, without end.
Jump forward to 1940. You're Albert Camus.
The gnarly reality: you're sick, coughing up blood from tuberculosis, cut off from your beloved country Algeria, scraping together francs to survive in German-occupied France.
Around you, the world has gone completely mad. France fell in six weeks and now millions of people are fleeing with whatever they can carry. Jewish neighbors are disappearing. Your countrymen are either collaborating with Nazis or joining underground resistance networks where a single wrong move means death.
Every single thing people used to believe in has crumbled.
God? Where is He while systematic evil unfolds?
Democracy? Steamrolled by fascism.
Progress and civilization?
The "civilized" world is committing industrial-scale murder.
So Camus sits down and writes "The Myth of Sisyphus" and seeks to answer: How do you keep going when everything feels pointless and death is knocking on your door?
This is where Camus's famous paradox emerges:
"We must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Why happy? Because in that moment when Sisyphus walks back down the mountain to retrieve his boulder, he is fully conscious of his fate and that consciousness becomes his freedom.
He is superior to his punishment because he understands it and continues, not because he must, but because he will.
Sisyphus transforms futility into purpose and meaninglessness into meaning through commitment and transforms punishment into defiance.
Camus’ answer: You continue because you choose to continue. Not because you believe things will get better, but because the very act of getting up each morning under occupation, of maintaining your dignity, of creating something beautiful while the world burns - that's your boulder. That's your defiance.
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."
Here's what I’m learning about creative rejection: I’ve been expecting my boulder to stay at the summit.
When the client chooses someone else, when my design was modified beyond recognition, when I wasn't selected for the next project - I took it as evidence that I had failed to reach some permanent peak of success.
The boulder always rolls back down.
What if the moment of not being chosen again isn’t a rejection of our worth, but simply the natural cycle of creative work?
What if the real victory wasn't in staying chosen, but in choosing to continue creating anyway?
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Poem #1193
All men for Honor hardest work
But are not known to earn -
Paid after they have ceased to work
In Infamy or Urn-
The cruel irony of creative recognition: those who work hardest, pouring their souls into exhausting effort may not receive acknowledgment.
Sometimes, the "payment" comes only after death, either as posthumous fame (the funeral urn) or disgrace (infamy).
The bitter irony of being "paid after they have ceased to work" renders recognition meaningless what good is honor when you can't experience it?
Was Dickinson fully conscious of her Sisyphean condition?
She was pushing the boulder of creation up the mountain with little hope of recognition, writing prolifically in obscurity while sensing any acknowledgment would come only "after she ceased to work."
Yet she kept writing because the work itself held meaning to her.
Like Camus’ Sisyphus, she was aware of the absurdity of her situation, yet chose to continue pushing her boulder.
Her Boulder: daily creation without an audience
Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems but published fewer than a dozen in her lifetime - and those were published anonymously and heavily edited against her wishes.
The Sisyphean Elements:
Daily ritual: She wrote on scraps of paper, envelopes, anything available, then carefully copied poems into hand-sewn books.
No external validation: She sent poems to friends and family but had no literary community or publishing aspirations.
Conscious choice: She deliberately chose isolation and private creation over public recognition.
The work itself was enough: Her letters reveal she found profound joy in the act of writing, regardless of readership.
Her words:
“I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you Nobody Too?
Then there's a pair of us!”
After her death, her sister discovered her volumes of work and published the poems, making Dickinson posthumously famous.
The restored parlor in her home where she wrote throughout her life.
Now the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Mass.
Jillian Freyer for The New York Times
Dickinson’s house, near Amherst College, where she was born, died and wrote her poems many of which were found in a locked chest after her death.
Jillian Freyer for The New York Times
Emily Dickinson, Daguerreotype, ca. 1847. The Emily Dickinson Collection, Amherst College Archives & Special Collections
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
His boulder: creating beauty in a world that didn't recognize it
Van Gogh sold exactly one painting during his lifetime ("The Red Vineyard") for 400 francs.
Vincent Van Gogh, 1888, Oil on Canvas, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
He was supported financially by his brother Theo and lived in poverty, mental anguish, and social isolation.
The Sisyphean elements:
Obsessive daily practice: Painted over 2,000 artworks in just 10 years, often completing a painting a day.
Rejection and ridicule: His work was considered crude, amateur, and unsellable by contemporary critics.
Conscious persistence: His letters to Theo reveal he knew his work was unappreciated but continued anyway.
Creating despite suffering: Painted some of his most famous works while institutionalized for mental illness.
His words:
"I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture."
He died believing himself a failure. This piece sold for $117 million in 2022.
Vincent Van Gogh, Orchard with Cypresses, 1888, oil on canvas
The Paul G. Allen Collection
Every creator is Sisyphean.
Writers face the blank page daily, knowing most work will be forgotten.
Artists create knowing beauty is temporary, subjective, often unrecognized.
Architects build knowing their structures will eventually crumble.
The Absurd Creator's Advantages
When you embrace the Sisyphean mindset, you gain four profound creative superpowers.
Freedom from outcome dependency means external failure can't stop you if you're not creating for external reward, rejection becomes irrelevant.
Immunity to despair follows naturally when you expect the boulder to roll back down, you're not crushed when projects end, clients move on, or work goes unrecognized.
Present-moment focus emerges because the only moment that truly matters is this push, this brushstroke, this word you're writing right now.
Authentic choice transforms everything every creative act becomes a genuine decision rather than obligation or compulsion, making your work feel alive and intentional rather than forced or desperate.
QUICK FIX:
When rejection hits, ask yourself:
What if my worth isn't being chosen, but in choosing to continue?
What if the pushing itself is the victory?
Daily Sisyphean Mantra:
"I am not my outcomes. I create because I choose too.”
HIGH AMP FIX:
Embrace Your Creative Boulder
Reframe Your Daily Practice
Expect the rollback - Don't be surprised by setbacks, rejections, or projects that don't last.
Find joy in the process - Make the act of creating itself rewarding (not just the results).
Failure is just the boulder rolling back - It's going to happen.
Your worth lives in commitment - You show up.
Create Your Own Meaning
Don't wait for external validation - Create significance through the work itself.
Consciousness is victory - Being aware of the creative condition transforms it
Defiance becomes joy - Continuing despite uncertainty transforms doubt to certainty.
Create Through Chaos
When the world feels broken - Your creative act becomes an act of defiance against despair.
When everything seems pointless - Creating anyway is the most meaningful thing you can do. And, it’s your power.
Remember Camus wrote during WWII - If he could find meaning in creation during civilization's collapse, you can find it during your chaos.
The Sisyphean Question: Will you walk down the mountain with dignity, ready to push again?
In our last issue, Issue 12, I posted this piece by Sasha Gordon, It Was Still Far Away, 2024 requesting your thoughts. It must have been one of those weeks since I didn’t hear from you. So I have free reign!
Sasha Gordon, It Was Still Far Away (detail), 2024
What strikes me about this piece is how it embodies the Sisyphean paradox we've been exploring.
On one hand, it captures the act of creating during chaos and through our deepest fears - perhaps the artist is continuing to work despite the world feeling like it's falling apart. Sasha’s defies logic, making art when everything feels precarious.
Is there another layer?
The title “It Was Still Far Away” suggests a kind of willful distance from reality, as if the chaos, and the urgent issues of our time are somehow remote, not quite here yet.
This feels like the flip side of Sisyphean consciousness.
Where Camus' Sisyphus is fully aware of his condition, this suggests a deliberate turning away, a comfortable numbness.
Is this creative defiance or creative denial?
Are we pushing our boulder up the mountain with full consciousness, or are we creating in a bubble, pretending the mountain isn't crumbling around us?
Both responses are equally human and equally necessary for survival.
Here’s a great article about Sasha https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/sasha-gordon-tells-lucy-liu-why-she-paints-the-things-that-scares-her
Any other thoughts? Email me here [email protected]
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🖼 VISITING NYC between now until November 1, 2025?
GO SEE Sasha Gordon’s work at David Zwirner, 19th Street. Information here.
🧑🎨 CHECK OUT the largest collection of Van Gogh’s work, with more than 200 paintings and 400 drawings on view. Information here.
✍ WHILE YOU ARE IN Massachusetts….
CHECK OUT Emily Dickinson’s home and where she wrote at Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst (near Amherst College). Plan your visit.
Hey ya’ll love on your creator friends.
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