Adversity isn’t an obstacle on the creative journey. It’s the source.
Originally published in 2017, updated in 2026.
I’m not breaking any new ground here with the tortured artist concept. This conversation has been going on for a very long time. But whenever something persists to the point of cliché, there’s usually at least some element of truth underneath it. Van Gogh, Kurt Cobain, Michelangelo, Nina Simone, Amy Winehouse — all fit the tortured artist archetype in popular culture. I want to be clear that I’m not advocating the emotional and physical extremes that some of these people went through. That’s not the argument.
My position is something more specific: we must experience some suffering, some genuine creative struggle on our journey to producing great work. Not as a price of admission. As the actual source of the thing.
The hero’s journey as a creative framework
You’re likely familiar with the hero’s journey. It forms the storytelling backbone of an enormous number of stories, books, and films. Joseph Campbell’s inner journey framework, in its simplest form, is a cycle: ordinary world, call to adventure, refusal, crossing the threshold, trials, ordeal, reward, return. Frodo Baggins. Luke Skywalker. Wonder Woman. The structure holds across cultures and centuries because it maps to something real about how humans grow.
What strikes me about the framework is the word “ordeal.” Not “challenge.” Not “setback.” The hero’s journey doesn’t sanitise what it costs to become someone capable of doing something significant. It treats adversity as structurally necessary, not incidental. The ordeal isn’t a plot device to create tension. It’s the mechanism through which the hero becomes who they need to be.
Our creative journeys don’t neatly fit the template, but the principle holds.
What the creative struggle actually produces
Here’s my thesis, as plainly as I can put it: adversity is the lens put over your eyes that allows you to view the world in your own unique way.
That unique lens is where original creative work comes from. Not from technical skill alone. Not from talent. From the specific, hard-won way you’ve been shaped by what you’ve been through. The creative who has fought through real difficulty, who has failed publicly, who has held a belief no one around them shared and refused to drop it — that person sees things that others can’t. And when they make work, it has a quality that purely comfortable work doesn’t.
This is why the creative struggle isn’t a bug in the system. It’s the system. The struggle reshapes perception. Reshaped perception produces original work. There’s no shortcut around it because the struggle isn’t separate from the output. It’s what makes the output possible.
The external adversity: when people don’t see your lens
There’s a second layer to this, and it’s harder. Because once you’ve developed that unique perspective, you’ll face people who don’t see what you see. They’ll challenge your ideas. Some will ridicule them. Some will dismiss them before they’ve finished loading. This is not a sign that you’re wrong. It’s a sign that you’re operating outside the consensus field of vision, which is precisely where interesting creative work lives.
George Lois said it well: “Creativity is the ultimate adrenaline rush. If you have what you consider a fantastic concept, you must drive it to the precipice.” The precipice is the moment of maximum exposure — when you’ve committed fully to the work, before the world has decided what to make of it. That moment is uncomfortable. It’s meant to be. The creative struggle doesn’t end when the work is made. It continues in the fight to protect and realise it.
If you truly believe in what you’ve produced, you have to fight for it. Not every battle. Not blindly. But when something is genuinely yours and genuinely good, the willingness to hold the line under pressure is part of the creative act.
Triumph, not martyrdom
I want to end where the hero’s journey ends: with triumph. The whole point of the framework is not suffering for its own sake. It’s growth through adversity, and the mastery that comes out the other side.
To any creatives reading this — the creative struggle is real and it matters, but it is not the destination. If suffering and adversity are weighing down too heavily on you right now, don’t carry it alone. Seek help. Seek support. Get outside your own head. There are more people willing to show up for you on this journey than you probably give them credit for.
The lens the struggle gives you is worth having. Just don’t push yourself or your work too far over the edge.
— E.
If you’re navigating the creative journey and trying to figure out what to do with what you’ve been through, that’s exactly the kind of conversation worth having.