art and insecurity

Now Playing: Begin Again by Taylor Swift (for the first time, what's past is past)

There's lots of psychology and pop psychology concerning the apparent link between creativity and mental illnesses. The most well-known finding is the 'Sylvia Plath effect', in which female poets (i.e....me...) are more likely to suffer from mental illnesses than male poets, other creative writers and other eminent women.

Lovely.

I think the root of these findings is that art is about self-expression. And the people who most urgently feel the need to express themselves are the subalterns of our society - the poor, the powerless, the working class, women, people with alternate sexual orientations, the suppressed, the abused - and yes, people with mental illnesses. These people and their lives are also conducive to enormous amounts of creative energy in need of an outlet.

In some ways there is a grain of truth in all of these claims - some substantiated, most not - most of my art buddies are batshit crazy - including me. The artists, the drama nerds, the musos, the lit freaks...we're all fucking psycho, and we're...rather proud of it.

As artists we live in a world where our talents and our vocations are not valued. We live in a world where normality is vastly overrated and we are trained and conditioned and expected to pretend that we don't think and feel and hurt. If you lived in a world where anything aside from looking pretty or kicking footballs or finding a cure for cancer is useless you'd be pretty fucked up too.

But in some ways my art is the only thing that keeps me going, even at the lowest points. Because even when I hate the way I look or I've been ditched in favour of some pretty blonde darling, I've always felt like I am someone that people would like to get to know, that my inner thoughts and musings and who I am and how I express myself is important. My blog has given me a place, however small and insignificant, in this world - if I can't shake the world I would at least like to make a sizeable dent in it. As insecure as I am I've never felt for a second that what I have to say is meaningless or how I feel is irrelevant.

I want people to know who I am. I want to know who I am, too. I want people to know what I think and how I feel and I want people to understand that as random as I might be I don't do anything without purpose, without motive. I want people to know that I hate violently and love passionately and I feel everything. My drive to show the world who I am and what I think and how I feel and what I believe in has helped me overcome the severest bouts of insecurity. Because I can't shake off this undeniable feeling that I am in some way important, and what I say is in some way relevant. My art makes me relevant, and that protects me from all the shit life throws at me and protects me from myself when I sink down to the lowest of low points. My art gives me meaning, gives me voice, gives me strength. So yes, I'm still insecure. But I'm an artist, and somehow that makes everything okay.