The Daily List

Not many people are as well read as Sean Millea. Most have read one or two plays by Shakespeare, few have read everything by Shakespeare. The talk I had with Sean, in the middle of Washington Square Park while rain threatened to drown out conversation, was a bit scattered (which was certainly my fault). We discussed why people really think the earth is flat, what it really means to be Justin Bieber, and of course, Shakespeare. Much of what Sean talked about while sparing 30 minutes of his time before his next set was about what is greatness and who is great. It’s one of those questions where the answers change depending on who you are talking about. Lately, thoughts of success and greatness seem to swirl in Sean’s mind. He literally wakes up each day to complete his daily check list of moving closer toward his goals, which in turn has made him even more conscious of how he spends his time. “[I had] an interview with some lady. She’s like, ‘It’s not really 9 to 5. It’s like a startup, so we’re locked in all the time.’  And I literally told her, ‘Yeah, I don’t want that at all,’” he tells me, thinking back on making decisions between creative freedom and potentially steady jobs. 

He hasn’t only added tasks to his daily checklists, but he has also eliminated things that hinder him as well, like smoking weed. “My buddy at work kind of from the outside was like, ‘I think that you would be way better without it.’ So I just gave myself a month and then I just kept going. And then I kind of realized, oh, I don’t need this thing.” Success is a process of adding and subtracting. Seeing what works and what doesn’t. This is probably true of nearly anything, art or otherwise, but Sean also considers what success actually is, not simply how to obtain it. “John Lennon, the most famous artist, like among the top five of all time…he just got to a point where he’s like, ‘I could just chill out. I don’t have to do anything else.’ That’s what I want. I want to be in my watching-my-wheels era and just be chilling in a living room with a piano and smoking a cigarette. I mean, I don’t smoke anymore, but you can imagine.”

I always find it ironic that many artists’ idea of success is to make art so well done that it makes them enough money to leave the option of deciding whether or not they want to make art. It’s akin to paying off a debt or due in which you earn the right to make what you want for yourself and no one else, because there’s nothing left to prove, no bills left to pay. 

Sean takes what he does seriously. He’s funny about it, but it’s still apparent that these aren’t light thoughts in his head. It’s important to note that he doesn’t think that’s necessary to make good art though. It speaks more on how he operates. There’s this trend of being like, “Oh, I’m this tortured artist. I’m going to pop a Xanny. I’m depressed.” And I feel like people start to emulate that as if it’s a necessity for great art… I only say that to say—is suffering required for good art? No, it probably just motivates people, or it gives people that otherwise wouldn’t have had an interesting perspective one[that’s interesting], or it helps people like me achieve what I otherwise would not achieve.”

I hope I’m able to talk with Sean again soon, without the rain coming and scaring him away on a city bike, because I think we only scratched the surface of what’s been bouncing around his head.