Kurt Vonnegut’s Simple Exercise On Becoming
While scrolling mindlessly through TikTok the other day I saw a letter that Kurt Vonnegut wrote to a high school class. The kids were given the assignment to write a letter to their favorite authors, but only one person replied. I thought it was a beautiful letter worth sharing, so please read and I hope you take it to heart.
Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:
I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don't make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.
What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula.
Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
God bless you all!
Kurt Vonnegut
This was written in 2006, before social media really took off, so I don’t think Mr. Vonnegut knew just how valuable this advice would be. We’re all, in some form or other, stuck performing constantly for people online. Whether it’s to look good for jobs past, present, and future or to simply be accepted as a well-functioning member of society, we have to constantly flex our talents. Or perhaps it’s just me? But if you can relate, then you know exactly what I mean.
This letter is a powerful reminder that becoming is in itself a reward for our art. Yes there’s money and fame, and there’s nothing wrong with seeking those things, but they primarily deliver comfort and status - rarely do they give us meaning and joy.
We often forget the joy that comes from doing something just for the sheer pleasure it brings to our soul. We are caught up in a cycle of validation, seeking approval from external sources. Yet, Vonnegut, in his age-old wisdom, urges us to break free, to indulge in art for our own selves, to nurture our souls through the pure bliss of creation, without the judgment of the world looming over us.
In a world suffocated with the pursuit of material success, Vonnegut's advice stands as a gentle reminder to embrace art in its purest form, as a vessel for personal growth and a tool to cultivate our inner gardens. The 'assignment' he gives, to create something beautiful and then to let it go, is perhaps one of the most freeing exercises one could undertake — a practice in detachment and a celebration of the self.
So don’t wait. Do some art today.
