Thoughts on Art & Anxiety
I’ve been meaning to start yet another blog, and I have been waiting for the “right time”. When successful writers talk about writer’s block, they tell you that there is never a right time, you set a schedule and you start writing, you write everyday, you write whenever you can, and in building a habit you distance yourself from the nerves and anxieties of producing something that doesn’t quite feel right, or isn’t quite good enough.
Today I woke up in search for a contemplative solitude, instead I found myself on my phone responding to unanswered messages to friends back home. In conversing with my friends I found that I had a lot to say. I have finally gained a sense of perspective that had been missing in the past couple of weeks.
There are times that anxiety pushes me toward productivity, the thought of not doing enough and the thought of not being good enough are the main ones. The thoughts that follow those in a swirling cloud of awe striking negativity leave me alone in my head wondering, why me? And mostly those thoughts are paralysing and leave me weak in my knees with a sense of insecurity.
Charles Bukowski as an example is a fantastic poet who survived on booze, women, and bad feelings in order to produce. While painting a picture of the stark reality of life may offer a sense of camaraderie to those down in the dumps, I would rather create a reality that lifts me up, and offers pleasures.
I’ve always been the kind of girl that is delighted by so many things in the world. It took me a long time to realize that. Living in a world that praises those who specialize in a field, growing toward a narrower and narrowed focus, I had always thought that I was an oddity who hadn’t found her calling. There was no particular interested that seemed to stand out from the rest, it was always moments of brief infatuation that didn’t seem to last. Eventually time paved way for a patterns, the lost loves of my childhood always came back, and they resurfaced in a different manner.
Art is a way for me to communicate with the world, and communication is a means for connection. It is a mode of interacting that requires many different mediums:
I have a love of movement and kinesthesia. When my body hears music it can’t help but move to the beat and the texture of the sound. When the words aren’t quite right in my head, I reach out to touch. Sensual caresses moving over large expanses of skin, the pressure of my knees, arms, and hands contorting your body in ways that you may never have thought to twist and bend into. Targeted kneading to relieve muscular tension. I seem to treat massage as a dance as well.
I have a love for the written word. I have been a voracious reader who’s been urged to use her love of prose to send thoughts out into the abyss. I’ve often called it a compulsion though, writing blanks. That masturbatory essence of teasing out thoughts and ideas for no purpose other than self indulgence and pleasure. But just as there are people who enjoy watching my body caught in that state of arousal and release, there are others that enjoy reading my internal monologue.
I have a love for fine art, design, and aesthetics. This manifests in my photography, paintings, or even fashion. I dabble in all sorts of artistic pursuits and every so often I do share them with the world. Lately it’s just been sharing my view of the world and my travels through photographic form, with an emphasis on composition and post-processing.
Most of of my life and what I love I consider to be part of my pursuit to communicate. I want to open myself up to perspectives and ideas that are so far obscured from my reality. I think in order to do that I really need to embrace the various mediums where people find meaning. Whether I’m communicating with someone through the rational lens of a scientific background or sharing abstract ideas with someone who is spiritually inclined I want to be able to keep an open mind and an open heart. And in sharing that with the world I’m confident that it will help spread the happiness and pleasure that I am seeking in my own world. At the crux of it, we’re all humans who long for a sense of kinship and understanding. The universal experience of the human condition.
Lately most of my anxieties take on the form of how do I maintain my outlook on life while surviving in this world and doing what is right for me? How do I create and share happiness when I’m overtaken by insecurity, and doubt? Parker Palmer in his book “A Hidden Wholeness” wrote a paragraph that stood out to me:
“Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the "integrity that comes from being what you are.”
This is me taking a stab at opening up and not being afraid to show myself to the world. Thank you @LucyEverleigh for inspiring this bout of writing.