Living with a Daemon

An Overstretched Allegory for the Highs and Lows of a Creative Life

There’s a daemon in my attic. It’s a hungry, menacing little creature. It craves what it craves, and it can’t explain why it craves it, and I can’t explain why either, so I feed it what it likes when it wants it, and I don’t really ask questions.

But there’s also another side to the creature. It’s childlike. And just as children create for intrinsic pleasure, it eats and plays for intrinsic pleasure. It needs no reason to eat or play.

And when it feels like playing, I hear thumping up above. It needs to get let out, and so I let it out. Sometimes I have my hands full, but when it needs to play, it doesn’t regard anything around it. It can be quite destructive, but I enjoy watching it and keeping its creations. We make it work.

The challenge though is when I need it to play and the daemon doesn’t feel like it. I have to go up into the attic and coax it out. I leave little bread crumbs for it to come out and play. It’s usually fast enough, though, to snatch the breadcrumbs and fly right back into the attic. So I have to kind of flirt with it, sit underneath the stairwell and play it its favorite songs on the ukulele.

Sometimes it listens to the ukulele and even hums along, but other times it shouts and knows what I am trying to do. It threatens to smash the ukulele, so I put it away.

The worst is when I have to forcibly drag the daemon out of the attic, when I need it to play and don’t have the time to win it over. I drag it out, kicking and screaming, and sometimes I even chain its ankle to my desk. Otherwise, it’ll flee right back up to the attic, or worse, into the rest of the house where I’m in for a miserable game of hide-and-seek. That’s why I chain it to the desk.

When it’s chained to the desk, it reminds me of Smeagol from Lord of the Rings. It begs to be released and vomits up all the treats I gave it earlier. It writhes on the ground and tells me I’m being unfair.

“Buddy I have deadlines,” I tell it.

It responds, “what are deadlines, precious?”

I explain that deadlines are these mental constructs that humans have created to get things done. And that deadlines don’t care to understand the daemon.

It listens curiously, and then just when I think I’ve convinced it to play, its eyes go blank. The whole concept is clearly too much for it to wrap its brain around so it throws its arms up and begins wailing again.

“I promise, just do the thing and you get to go back into the attic.”

I offer it juicy steaks as a reward.

Eventually, the daemon concedes. In our battle of attrition, I can usually win. And I don’t see any other way it could happen. I feel bad, but then it starts to do its thing and for a minute, it has forgotten my abuse. The intrinsic desire comes back. And it plays, though somewhat reluctantly and suspiciously.

And sometimes, when I watch it play and get excited, I encourage it, but it snaps at me, remembering our whole ordeal. So I step back and give it some distance.

After the daemon delivers, I find that it's probably not its best work. But the daemon has done its job. I release it from its chains. It gives me a confused and skeptical look upon being released, and then it whips back up to the attic.

I throw it a juicy steak, shutting the attic door. It cry-eats it.

I listen from below and wonder how much more abuse it can tolerate. It falls asleep, equally exhausted from the crying as from the play earlier. I wonder if it could ever understand that cooperating would make its life easier.

And then I think, “oh well, this life isn’t easy for anyone.” And I believe it’s true.

My daemon and I, we need each other. We make it work, and I know it’s not the healthiest thing.

But deadlines. What else can you do?