Why is it that artists suffer?

Hemingway and Van Gogh led troubled lives. Emily Dickinson would have scored 100 percent on the “sad hermit test,” if there was such a thing. Author J.K. Rowling recently told CNN of her past struggles with suicidal thoughts. Britney Spears, an artist in her own right, is enduring constant paparazzi pressure, and none of it positive.

It seems that history and pop culture are full of creative souls who have experienced deep tragedy and infused it into their art.

But does it have to be that way? Does the creation of art require intimacy with personal pain? No, not necessarily.

It’s often good for an artist to mentally understand tragedy in order to channel ideas, said writer and filmmaker David Lynch in an online excerpt of his book, “Catching the Big Fish.” But it is not healthy to seek suffering on purpose, or to willingly submit to pain inflicted by others. “You can understand conflict,” Lynch wrote, “but you don’t have to live in it.”

Unfortunately, though, to carry a gift is to carry a heavy responsibility. Once that gift is discovered, people tend to demand consistency and productivity. This extends to all types of artists, whether to singers, painters, dancers, actors, musicians or writers, and yes folks—even to journalists.

We may not be allowed to insert our opinions into the stories we write, but we invest our hearts in them nonetheless. We may not have our faces plastered on the cover of every Herald issue (or even one for that matter), and we may not seem to care about anything but the news, but we do.

Underneath the surface there is a nagging dread of criticism. We’re not out to get the community; we love it here and want to represent it in all of its facets, both good and bad. We seek truth above all. And every time, when it’s not good enough, when the facts don’t line up, when the e-mails come flooding in, we hurt inside.

Because, when it’s all said and done, we’re really here for you. We’re here for you as a community, to find out your stories, to love you, and to discover what we have in common through our mutual brokenness.

Laurie Hekman, Herald managing editor, fully supports these thoughts.

“I think each of us has probably woken up one morning and been like, ‘How the heck did I end up here?’” she said. “How did I end up with the Herald as my No. 1 priority, and hating it so much and yet loving it terribly, and laughing at ourselves at this ambiguity and this love-hateness? We can’t help but laugh, and cry.”

Hekman echoed that the reason we do what we do is out of a heart for people.

“I think that each of us are probably in it for our own individual reasons,” she said, “but mostly out of a love for people, and for story, and for the beauty that can come out of telling the tale of the unknown soldier and the quiet genius in the corner—that 16-year-old literal genius on campus and the misunderstood professor and the dedicated nurse.”

Because our hearts are so invested in this, it aches terribly to receive constant “suggestions for improvement,” with not much of a “thumbs-up” to let us know we’re on track.

We pour our lives into this work. It hurts that we have to explain our heart’s true motives, and it hurts worse to know that the most vocal readers are the ones who misunderstand and criticize.

“What hurts the worst is not only do they not receive [our work], but they assume that our intentions are the opposite of what they are,” Hekman said. “They assume that our intentions are to slander and to dig up crap about our sisters and our brothers on Cornerstone’s campus. We seek truth ferociously, but we do it out of love. What hurts the worst is to be misunderstood, to have them say that your love is malice.”

The author Lynch, whose experience of more than 40 years as an artist lends him the right to be wise, summarized the heart and soul of this idea.

“The more the artist is suffering, the less creative he is going to be,” he said. “It’s less likely that he is going to enjoy doing his work and less likely that he will be able to do really good work.”

So please, know that it’s OK to criticize sometimes, but artists also seek to know that they are resonating with their audience—that someone appreciates the unsung work being done.

Look at your fellow artists, at Cornerstone and elsewhere, struggling to communicate their visions to the world, and remember that suffering does not produce great art. Art is born when people are set free to be who they are.