By Dana Roy
Must we bleed to unleash our creativity? Why is it that the sharpest art seems to rise not from still waters, but from storm-tossed souls? Why do we, as thinkers, ache to ask the unrelenting question: If the world could be cleansed of its cruelties, would we create less beautifully? The question masks itself as moral, but carries a far more troubling implication—one that has haunted philosophers, playwrights, and poets alike. It doesn’t simply question the goodness of mankind. It entertains the idea that the removal of evil could strip us of the friction that ignites meaning, creativity, and depth.
It longs for a false utopia—one where the human eye, instead of swimming in moral complexity, stares at banal landscapes in golden and violet hues. Where poems are no more than shallow praises of joy; where poets describe hugging brothers we’ve never fought with, and paint suns that never set.
But if evilness were abolished, what would art become? What would remain of its foundation—conflict, grief, transformation? Most of the world’s finest pieces of art orbit anguish. They don’t solely live in fiction. They are sprinkled with a writer’s scars.
Even comedy is a child of pain. It only shines when darkness precedes it. In Shakespeare’s tragedies—Desdemona speaking with the clown in Othello or the Fool in King Lear—humor does not exist without cruelty shadowing it. Remove conflict, and you erase plays that have stood the test of time. A world scrubbed of evil would not have inspired Othello, nor gifted Shakespeare the tragedies that shaped his legacy.
In a utopia, Iago’s “honesty” is sincere. Lear’s daughters are devoted. In that same world, I couldn’t have written the word “deception,” because I would never have tasted it. And Shakespeare? He wouldn’t be a bard, but perhaps a starving playwright, unrecognized, without tragedy to inspire his quill.
While we flirt with dreams of peace, we fail to consider what that peace may cost. Art would not survive as we know it. Believing that evil’s removal is a solution is like believing there’s only one way to interpret a story—it’s comforting, but short-sighted. Without pain, anguish, and brutality, the world would have never seen the birth of meaningful art.
That’s not to say art must only be born from suffering. Artists who celebrate love or joy deserve their accolades. But the joy they depict often feels more profound because the opposite exists. A moment of peace is appreciated more if the artist has previously survived a war.
I have known war—and now, peace. I’ve written about the absence of love, and now that I have it, my art celebrates it genuinely. Even when poetry speaks of hydrangeas or crowded buses, it’s likely because the writer once knew emptiness. Joy without prior despair is less vivid.
This interplay of pain and peace is mirrored in the body’s craving for sweetness after salt. It is the balance that satisfies us. Likewise, comedy works not because it is funny—but because it arrives after conflict, like dessert following a heavy meal.
That’s why artists cannot live confined to logic alone. Rationality cannot build a story with impact. A good artist must step outside comfort, abandon their palazzo or villa, and walk the grimy alleyways of human experience. They must bleed, feel, and then create. To paint, write, or direct from a hollow shell is to produce empty echoes. Art asks us to witness suffering—and transform it.
Once that pain is lived, rationality may step in. But not before. Art thrives in irrational emotion. Plato hated art precisely because it isn’t rational—it is theatrical, fragmented, exaggerated. It mirrors the inner chaos of the human soul. Pain and love: the most irrational of them all. Plato loathed them. But that is why artists adore them. Because they do not speak through logic, but through connection. And art, even when confessional or distorted, resonates deeply for this reason. It may not be objective—but it is honest.
While writing this, I imagined Plato arguing with Sylvia Plath. He’d critique the irrationality of her poetry; she’d defend its emotional truth. They would both miss each other’s points. But that’s the beauty of art. It resists closure. It lives in tension.
Art is not always made for answers. It is made for those who dare to bleed, to stumble, to shed. Just like a snake, an artist must shed to grow stronger. Our stories improve because we do. Our art becomes more refined because we have suffered enough to polish it. So no, do not beg for evil to vanish. If it did, art would become decoration. Superfluous. Toothless.
To be an artist is to bleed. And we follow that crimson trail—not because we want to suffer, but because we must. It is our duty. We bleed, and walk the red path, because we know: at the end of it lies the garden. Verdant. Serendipitous. Sprinkled with stars.
