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To effect change in our world, we must enlist the aid of artists. They serve as beacons, guiding us through the obscurity we often find ourselves ensnared within, preoccupied, distracted, and entangled in our inner conflicts. Our existence necessitates a greater luminosity, and to achieve this, we require artists who possess unwavering integrity, dauntless courage, and profound insight to usher us toward a virtuous course. Alas, we find ourselves bereft of such guiding lights, instead inundated with those who forsake their artistic purity for profit, prioritizing the sedation of the masses over the cultivation of emotional intelligence and well-being. Echoed by James Baldwin On Integrity, we hunger for artists who wield their talents like swords, unafraid to cut through the fog of complacency saying:

There is such a thing. There is such a thing as integrity. Some people are noble. There is such a thing as courage. The terrible thing is that the reality behind these words depends ultimately on what the human being (meaning every single one of us) believes to be real. The terrible thing is that the reality behind all these words depends on choices one has got to make, for ever and ever and ever, every day.

Artists speak on behalf of the people; their battle is the internal struggle we all experience and must confront. James Baldwin makes it abundantly clear that the artist’s role is to assist us in discovering our true selves. However, we reside in a civilization that often rejects artists, shames creatives, and disregards their message. Regrettably, the artist, secretly subscribing to these misconceptions, fails to truly commit to their artistry. Our artists are letting us down in our quest to shoulder our responsibilities. In “James Baldwin On Integrity,” Baldwin assembles the insights of our wisest artistic heroes and emphatically states:

Conrad told us a long time ago (I think it was in Victory, but I might be wrong about that): “Woe to that man who does not put his trust in life.” Henry James said, “Live, live all you can. It’s a mistake not to.” And Shakespeare said—and this is what I take to be the truth about everybody’s life all of the time—“Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.” Art is here to prove, and to help one bear, the fact that all safety is an illusion. In this sense, all artists are divorced from and even necessarily opposed to any system whatever.

Every artist remembers the moment when they were seized by the spirit to create. This occurrence unfolds in the most peculiar and unsuspecting manners, whether it arises from a church assignment, an encounter with great art, or the depths of a profound depression, when all one has to rely on is art to overcome it. However, once it transpires, it appears to set one apart from the world and marks the commencement of a life that cannot be halted. There is an imperative compulsion; no alternative exists, as it is the sole pursuit that holds any meaning. It provides purpose and simultaneously separates you from the world you once knew, propelling you into a new realm. This realm is one of perpetual confrontation, an existence marked by an unceasing engagement with the trauma one seeks to obliterate, an unrelenting approach to pain, despair, and the absurd, ultimately uncovering wisdom where others have found only death. James Baldwin articulates this aspect of pain with the following words:

And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, what bullwhips you, what drives you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive. This is all you have to do it with. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as I can tell you what it is to suffer, perhaps I can help you to suffer less.