Harry: A Cautionary Tale
Don't deny your creative self.
The university I attended had a big Greek scene as its social focus, but always feeling a misfit, I sought other society. We were poets and musicians, painters and actors: creative types who often felt dislocated, and proudly so. We made an effort to distinguish ourselves; we were our own little fraternity.
Harry wasn’t part of our group—or any group, for that matter. An art major, he was even more dislocated, preferring his own company to ours. Older than us by a few years (he’d taken a multi-year break in college and had just returned) he felt that his age made it difficult for him to hang with us. But as he lived directly across from me in the dorm, we struck up a kind of friendship.
Before I really knew him, one afternoon he came back drunk, cradling an unopened six-pack, and had difficulty unlocking his door. I helped him in and his thanking me was the start of our friendship.
His life was filled with frustration and anger. He railed especially against the university’s art department. For one of his projects, he’d made a little mannequin out of metal and received a low grade from his instructor. Furious, he took the sculpture outdoors, doused it with gasoline and set it aflame. He then showed the charred result to his instructor—and in doing so, received high praise. “That’s the way it is,” he said bitterly, “you have to do something crazy.”
He had other complaints, too. All contemporary music was criminally unoriginal; he decried as mere imitators the band Led Zeppelin and was dumbfounded that I enjoyed listening to it. There were precious few hippies left in the world; wearing his hair long as a badge of the counterculture, he claimed he was the only one remaining on campus. And the Greeks! He dismissed them as lemmings.
With his extreme negativity, I’m not sure why we became friends, but in college I felt that any creative type was a kinsman, and that I should reach out. Maybe his negativity found a sympathetic chord in me; back then, I, too, had complaints.
Harry rewarded me for my friendship one day by offering to sketch my portrait in charcoal. As I perched on a stool, he complimented me with “You have really beautiful hands” and “German girls would love you.” (He was proud of his German heritage.) He gave me the portrait, and as appreciative as I was, I honestly couldn’t recognize anything of myself in the charcoal scrawls on green paper. I’ve since lost it.
After graduation, our paths diverged, but for a while Harry and I kept in touch by mail. He moved to Atlanta, while I lived about an hour east. One day he invited me to visit, so I drove out to his apartment in Five Points. I asked him how his art was going. He replied, “I don’t do art any more. I’m a computer programmer.”
This news shocked me, as I thought he would always do art. (Yes, today I know that programming can be a creative endeavor, but I didn’t know that then.) I think my disappointment was so great that I never asked him, Why?
After a few more exchanges of letters, I eventually lost track of Harry. Recently, I learned he passed away at age 59 in 2011. I don’t know the circumstances of his death, but I wonder if his anger and frustration contributed to it—or perhaps the denial of his artistic self? Honoring your creative needs, I’ve found, goes a long way to bringing you happiness.
Each of us in that misfit fraternity had to earn a living, of course, but we never surrendered our identities as poets, musicians, painters, and actors. Among the college friends I’ve managed to keep in touch with, one rose to become a celebrated Hollywood director, working with icons like Leonardo DiCaprio; another built a thriving career as a visionary digital artist, running an acclaimed advertising firm; and yet another found fame as a musician, joining a legendary band that still plays to sold-out crowds around the world. And then, of course, there’s me—happily writing and painting all these years.
Thanks for sharing. Harry *clearly* needed more Led Zeppelin in his life.