mad men and abundance

The new season of Mad Men is only a couple of months away. Of course, back in the 1960s, a show whose next season was only a couple of months away would be still in its current season. But we're in a new era, and I don't complain at all, because Mad Men is way better than I Dream Of Jeannie.

As an artist, I have always told myself to use all the creative material I have, to spend it profligately, with no thought of saving it for some hypothetical better time down the road. That forces you to use your best ideas and therefore turn in your current best work right now. So what if you run out of ideas? Chances are, actually, that you won't, and that the juice will keep flowing for a nice long time. On the other hand, what if that's wrong, and this idea is the best you've ever had? Well then all the more reason to spend that idea right now. Is Paul McCartney really sad that all his best songs were already written 45 years ago? It couldn't have turned out better.

And yet artists still have a tendency to conserve great ideas for some reason, to let them wait. It's kind of a discipline to use those ideas now. I got to thinking about this in conjunction with Mad Men, when I read this interview with its creator.

I started this season, Season 6, with the idea, all that there is is Season 7 left. So there were certain things that I was talking about in terms of this season, and I was like I’m going to save that, I’m going to put that into Season 7, it’s not time for that yet. And at a certain point [the writers] said to me, "Why are you doing this differently than you did it before?" And they were right. I am incapable of really holding back on story. So despite my inclination and my terrors about it ending and having nothing left, I decided to use everything I have this season that I have right now. It’s worked for the show before. I never used to know if I had another season, so I would always put in everything that I had. There is an intricacy to the stories that we tell and they’re on a human scale, so the idea of having less is just … I think it would be boring.

I never used to know if I had another season, so I would always put in everything that I had. Is there a more concise way to state this powerful rule for artists?

And non-artists as well: you and I don't know if we'll have another season. Let's put in everything we have.