When an artist paints, composes, or writes, they are not only shaping a work but they are reshaping their inner landscape.
The books When Things Don’t Go Your Way (Haemin Sunim), The Courage to Be Disliked (Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga), The Artist’s Mind (Kathryn Vercillo), and The Art of Creative Thinking (Rod Judkins) together whisper a strange, harmonious wisdom:
art is less about control, and more about navigating storms of doubt, rejection, and possibility with a fearless kind of play.
The Fragile Mind of Creation
Artists live between beauty and breakdown. The Artist’s Mind shows us how Van Gogh’s melancholy, Frida Kahlo’s pain, and Yayoi Kusama’s visions were inseparable from their creative worlds.
Instead of escaping fragility, they turned it into paint, song, and sculpture. In this sense, the artist’s mind is not a problem to be solved, but an engine to be understood.
Haemin Sunim reminds us: when things don’t go our way, it may be the universe’s invitation to pause, breathe, and reframe.
Artists know this pause intimately; those long nights staring at blank canvases or silent instruments. What if the pause itself is part of the art?
Courage and Dislike as Creative Tools
Kishimi and Koga’s The Courage to Be Disliked is not just philosophy; it’s survival advice for artists. Every bold brushstroke risks rejection. Every experimental sound performance risks being misunderstood.
To create is to invite both love and dismissal. The book argues that freedom comes when we stop living for the approval of others and start creating from inner necessity.
An artist who creates without fear of dislike becomes dangerous; in the best way. They disrupt patterns, bend rules, and resist the safe paths that suffocate originality.
Lessons from Creative Thinking
Rod Judkins’ The Art of Creative Thinking offers small sparks; 100 provocations to break rigid patterns. Combine this with Haemin Sunim’s Zen calm, and a new principle emerges: wildness with stillness.
Try something absurd daily (Judkins’ wildness).
Then sit with it quietly, without judgment (Sunim’s stillness).
This rhythm is an expansion and reflection…is how artists stretch their imaginations without burning out. Imagine Picasso doodling nonsense, then meditating on the shapes. Or a sound artist recording kitchen noises, then listening back in silence until the hum of the fridge feels like a symphony.
Final Reflection: A New Theory for Artists
From these four books, we can sketch a compass for the artist:
North: Stillness – Accept when things don’t go your way. Listen deeply. (Haemin Sunim)
East: Courage – Dare to create without approval. (Kishimi & Koga)
South: Sensitivity – Protect and honor the fragility of your mind. (Vercillo)
West: Playfulness – Think differently, wildly, and often. (Judkins)
When these four directions balance, the artist is not lost even in storms. Instead, they wander with purpose, like explorers guided not by maps, but by inner stars.
Wisdom for the Artist:
Failure is rehearsal for brilliance.
Sensitivity is not weakness; it’s radar.
To be disliked is sometimes proof you are on the right path.
Weirdness is the soil where originality grows.
The pause is also creation—silence paints its own canvas.
Dr.Kamal Sabran
Amen, amen, amen!