“You write best when you’re angry.”

It was the sentiment I received during my first five years of writing online to a public audience. My long-time friend and upcoming co-author, Thomas Jast, always pushed me to write more while offering advice along the way.

Anger, it seemed, was the emotion needed to unlock the voice needed to give my writing any depth. Otherwise, it sounded like a put together essay that any person could have written.

While appreciative of the observation, there was more to strive for in art. Anger is the easiest emotion for us to attain because it is a knee-jerk reaction to situations. Built-up over time, anger turns into other emotions, which can be a scary route to traverse on.

However, it’s the deepest of emotions that give art the soul it needs to move the world.

Sometimes, this is that deep seated anger that can only be expressed through the lyrical pangs of a musician in the midst of oppression. Many can sing a song, or play a tune, but few can give it the soul it needs to connect with the audience (which is what separates the amateurs from the professionals).

It can be a sense of awe for the world and a love for all that is beautiful that forces one to pen a screenplay based on something so simple as watching a paper bag floating in the wind.

Or it can be the joy of knowing new life is in the world that gets one to pick up their sewing needles and make hats for all the newborn children in their local hospital.

The underlying theme beneath all of this is an artist’s passion to show what they’re feeling. It’s raw, which is what connects us to it and sparks our own emotions in ways that move us.

Without it, the artist is only giving us a shell to admire, but quickly forget.