Steve Martin's path from childhood trauma to artistic success

Multitalented Steve Martin is an inspiration. Known most for his comedic work as a standup artist and actor in film, Steve Martin is also a renowned musician and art collector. His multifaceted persona inspires young artists to diversify their talents and recognize that one can excel at several different activities. In Born Standing Up, Martin reflects on his early career and how he got his start as a performing artist. More importantly perhaps, Martin reflects on his childhood and his relationship with his father. Martin shows how the psychological stressors from childhood and current relationship issues can enhance one\'s art. As he states, \"a complicated childhood can lead to a life in the arts, (Martin 29). Art requires an ability to transmute challenging feelings into universal truths, then into outputs that audience members can relate to because of the universality of both suffering and laughter.

Although it is not the goal of Martin\'s autobiography to coach emerging talent, young and aspiring artists can take much from Martin\'s story. Martin did always want to be a performer, and he later qualifies his impetus to perform as being almost a moral imperative, something that offered far more meaning to his life than the career in academia that he considered: \"I felt that a career in the irrational world of creativity not only made sense but had moral purpose,\" (Martin 87). His pursuit of a viable career in the arts was innately driven; it almost feels as if Martin was not necessarily taking a risk but was doing the only thing he knew how: to perform. Starting with magic and variety acts, Martin always seemed interested in making audiences laugh. He crafted his performances carefully, wanting to In fact, his dad also wanted to be a performer and failed. His failure led Martin\'s dad to resent his son\'s success, which deepened the rift that characterized their strained relationship. Martin offers inspiration and insight to readers by showing how he overcame negativity from the key male role model in his early life. Through anecdotes and honest self-assessment, Martin shows how he avoided falling pray to problems like self-doubt or behavioral problems common in show business like substance abuse. Martin also offers hope to shy and introverted artists who, ironically, thrive off of their performance art as Martin does.

Martin demonstrates the importance of historical and cultural context for an artist. The zeitgeist of the time can influence the nature of one\'s art, its content, its political undertones, and its form. Martin was influenced heavily by the hippie movement in particular. As he notes, \"any new social philosophy is good for creativity,\" because of the ways new ideas, worldviews, and paradigms are introduced (86). It is not just the individual that has changed his or her perspective; the entire generation is shifting and so those new views impact the artist while the artist can also feed back to the audience the new view. The author also comments on the process and challenges of writing comedy: \"Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening\" (Martin 104).