Muses Don’t Get the Credit They Deserve
Why inspiration matters, and why it should be rewarded
The ancient Greeks and Disney’s Hercules
The Greeks had a very different perception of what a “muse” than Disney.
In the Hercules animated film, the muses are the narrators and musicians (hey, that’s where the word comes from!) that take us through the story. They’re entertaining and talented but I don’t think they completely fit the term muse as the Greeks intended it.
There are differing numbers of archetypal muses (either 3 or 9) covering everything from epic poetry to music and dancing, but regardless of the number of muses, they had an additional power beyond creating the art they represented.
They were both the embodiment of what you wanted to create (i.e. musical in their own ways, like the Hercules movie muses), but also that inspirational aspect. You would pray to the muses for the ability to create truly beautiful art. They were the helpful creative force, the slight movement on the ouija board of creativity. The muses made good artists into great artists.
So given this history lesson, why do I think muses deserve more credit? I think it comes down to the fact that many muses are actual mortals or physical things, not simply mythological beings. Muses are in our world and they deserve to share in the spoils of the artists who benefit from their inspiration.
WeWork/WeCrashed
The cringy and rollercoaster docudrama on Apple TV+ of Adam Neumann and Rebecca PALTROW (lest we forget) Neumann (the rise and fall of WeWork) is definitely worth your time (or maybe just the podcast) if you want to see a muse portrayed in an interesting light.
I obviously don’t know much about Rebecca other than what the show portrays her as. It’s easy to pick her apart as fake or as a sideshow character to the “genius” that is her husband, she’s one of the instrumental pieces to his success.
Adam before Rebecca was a guy selling baby knee pads. Or adjustable heels that didn’t work. Adam was broke and desperate, looking to make his big break.
In an early scene in the docudrama, Adam pursues Rebecca quite far just to ask her on a date (going to her grocery store, attending her yoga class). Adam then makes a total ass of himself by showing up super late to dinner, and Rebecca, instead of just sitting there and getting through the meal, confronts him, and tells him “he is an asshole.”
What does Adam do? Does he tuck his tail and run? Nope, if Adam is anything, he’s persistent. He launches back about her yoga being nonsense, but then he ups the ante later on.
He comes into Rebecca’s yoga studio and tells the yogi that he’s underpaying Rebecca, and that he (Adam) could set up a whole new studio and take all the customers with Rebecca, so the yogi better pay her more.
This apparently works out well for Rebecca and Adam (cue sex scene).
So what happened? Rebecca inspired Adam to act in a positive way, a way that channeled his “asshole-ness” into getting him to stand up for her.
Numerous times through the series, Rebecca challenges Adam and makes him better for it. She is very much the muse to WeWork’s rise. She even invests gift money from her father into an initial WeWork investment, giving Adam not just the inspiration, but the actual capital to start his business. Rebecca is one of the pillars on which Adam builds his company.
(That’s not to say that she doesn’t have her faults… if she really did say “elevate the world’s consciousness” as much in real life as she does in the show, she’s probably a bit of a nut.)
Women as an Inspiration to Men
This is not to say that men can’t inspire women to create or do great things, but this is not the traditional dynamic.
Women are the true creators of the human world. They make other people. You can’t really beat that as a creative force. Men don’t suffer to grow another organ and a human inside their bodies for 9 months.
So the creativity of men is purely locked into the things they can do with their hands. They can shape their children, or make great works of art, but they can’t make their children.
All of this to say… what is all of this art for?
There’s the obvious money aspect; great art is generally rewarded, even if the artist themselves might not see the money in their lifetime.
But I believe the deeper purpose of art is to express feelings. Feelings of joy, terror, pain and love. Art is the way to empty the contents of your brain onto a canvas, paper, or word processor.
And who stirs greater feelings in us than those that we love? The ones we love can make us feel the greatest highs and the lowest lows. Men can inspire women, sure, but women are even more of an inspiration to men.
Taylor Swift writes songs about her (ex)boyfriends, but they’re more “hindsight is 20–20” or female empowerment pieces. The men are more of the background characters than the foreground.
Compare that with You Are My Sunshine, or a million love ballads sung by boys/men to their hopeful lovers.
Women don’t need men nearly as much as men need women.
The feelings that men have for women are asymmetric:
Women: Eh, I could take him or leave him.
Men: I NEED A WAMAN.
Now, men can (and very often do) become complacent. That’s because men are both single minded and very stupid. Can’t help that.
The upside is that aman’s single minded pursuit of a woman can bring him to do great creative acts.
The Mind is Not Separate from the Body
All of this is to say, the pursuit of women by men is definitely mediated by more base parts of our brain. The desire of men to be with women is a huge motivator (the motivator?) for how men act in the world.
(Yes there are people that are not straight/queer, but the desire for companionship is still there).
Want to make a lot of money as a man? Why? Oh, so you can support a stable family and attract women with your impressive assets? Sounds pretty woman motivated.
Want to make a beautiful piece of artwork? Why? Oh, to express feelings and affection? For whom? Hm….
These strong, primal urges are very much connected to the higher level structures of our brains. Our brains are hooked up to systems that want to make sure we have babies. The only legitimate way to make sure you have babies as a man is by showing your affection to a woman in a positive way, so that she returns your affection.
Muses are powerful because they tap into something primal within us. It’s not simply “oh I want to be rich and famous.” It’s more “there are things I feel and think that I cannot communicate in any other way, so let this work of art be the way I communicate it.”
The inspiration for those feelings is not simply ammunition or a blank canvas. That inspiration is a gift. It is a powerful force that you cannot simply trade, and is unique to whoever is your muse.
So What Should We Do?
Maybe we should pay our muses? At the very least, they deserve the praise and veneration that the Greeks gave to their muses. Treat the people that give you good feelings and that inspire you to create great works as what they are: an integral part of your life and your art.
