Balance as always
I have missed a couple of days of this journey through June challenge but sometimes life gets in the way and to be quite frank, I would rather experience life, 10 fingers and toes in, fully present and committed to the people I am with. The weekend was full of life and laughter and I would not have it any other way. Full of good friends and giggles on couches, late-night McDonald’s conversations (as per tradition) and abundance that makes the heart so so full.
I am sure that anyone who writes about their life sometimes has those moments where you wonder what you could possibly talk about. Do you talk about the goodness of life? Can you talk about it? Or maybe you talk about the wildness of life. The stories fraught with ups and downs. The fight for clarity and the wading through mud. If all you did was talk about the good, would it sound like a brag? and if all you talked about was the bad stuff, are you somehow depressed and simply just unaware?
Now, I have bone to pick with this strangely idealised notion of the tortured artists. To be as frank as possible… I hate it. I despise the idea that artists have to be tortured. That we must be contorted and bent over from emotion and life and the only way we stand straight is if we paint or create art. I think that is the most perpostrous thing I have ever heard. The wounded poet. The down-and-out actor. The desperate singer. The divorced and heart broken writer. This idea that good art is only made from this tortured place really ruffles my metaphorical feathers.
Why? Because I refuse to believe that art in any of its wonderous forms can only come from a dark place. I think you do art such a disservice if all you do is create from a place of pain. What about the work you make when you are full of joy? In love? the art you make when you are content, living a life of abundance and peace? That kind of art to me is just as important as those that come from a place of grief, pain, sorrow and heartbreak. What about art about hope on the other side of those things? How lost would we be if all we saw in art was devestation and desolation when hope is such a beautiful thing. I’ve found in life, you cannot have one without the other. So why do we focus only on pain when hope and healing is the other side of that equation? How diminished would we be if all we had were stories of heart break and never the stories of finding love after everything.
Imagine a movie full of pain and sorrow. A story of heartbreak and when you get to the end of the movie, all you get is more pain and sorrow. One can relate to it, but for how long? There is a quote by Haruki Murakami that says “but we cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.” I think the idea of the tortured artist is someone who sits and stares at their wounds day in and day out until all they can see is their wounds. They forget to lift their head and see what else life has to offer. That maybe, lifting their head is what will help heal the wound instead.
I think that art, any kind of art, writing, photography, films, paintings, whatever, comes from a place of being in touch with yourself as a fully rounded human. That it comes from both dark and light. But you must be aware and in touch with both sides. You do not shy from the dark because it gives you depth and expansion and you do not hide from the light for it brings clarity and peace. It is a lesson in balance. As always. So hide not from the light and shy not from the dark, see both and let both combine and turn you into a fully realised artist full of depth and experience, creating from a place of peace rather than pain.
