Searching for Significance

I’ve got a good friend who is a successful writer for television sitcoms. At an event one evening, a woman approached him and asked, “How can I help my young daughter to become a successful Hollywood writer?” In his characteristic wit doused in friendly sarcasm, my friend replied: “Withhold your love from her for the next ten years.”

One of the main reasons many creative people come to Hollywood – and this is at the same time rarely mentioned and rarely denied – is that they are looking for significance, a sense of actually mattering in and to this world. I’m sure that we could summon up a swarm of psychologists who would agree, asserting that many creative people, and especially performers, are driven by a need to fill the hole left by not feeling love or significance in their formative years – perhaps even from a mother or father, as my writer friend suggested.

And without going too far into the depths of pop psychology, it actually may be true. The search for the feeling of significance often motivates us artistic folks to perform – in our writing, our acting, our filmmaking, or whatever it is that we do creatively. That can even, at times, lead to noteworthy accomplishments in our artistic pursuits.

With that said, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not our talents or abilities that actually make us significant in this life. To fall into the trap of thinking otherwise may or may not allow us to succeed in the world of creativity, but it will certainly leave us continuously chasing after a further sense of meaning. And that’s because the feeling of significance – like all emotions – comes and goes, and eventually fades away.

Ultimately, a significance that fades away is, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant. If we as humans and artists truly have significance, if we truly have meaning – and I’m convinced that we do – it’s because of something, or someone, much more abiding and permanent than any emotion we could have about ourselves.

One of the great schemes of the Devil, in all his artful cunning, is to convince us to chase after that which we already have in abundance. So it is with significance: We already have more of it than we know how to wield, and yet our wholehearted pursuit of it drives us toward all sorts of achievement and folly.

I will suggest here, and you’re free to provide evidence to the contrary if you’re able, that you will not become more significant by selling that script you’re writing, or landing that lead role, or directing a feature film, or any other artistic accomplishment that delivers applause or celebrity.

When it comes down to it, we must remember this: We don’t have significance because we are artistic; we are artistic because we have significance. The spotlight does not bring more significance; it only illuminates what is already there.

If we can grasp that fact, it will change who we are as people and why we do what we do as artists.

All my best,

Shun Lee
Actor & Writer

© 2011. All rights reserved.

• Published in:
• Creativity & Art,
• Miscellaneous,
• Spirituality & Ministries