I've been thinking about my periods of staleness, inactivity and overall indifference. Actually, I know that I am not indifferent, I don't feel well when I get demotivated like that. I wish I could be more productive as people today all over the world say: it's all about productivity. About having products, the fruits of your labor and the proof of what you're worth. About being busy and all, and ok - that's the time we live in. But I am not talking about hectic non-stop activity, I don't think I've ever gotten to a point where I was non-stop active. I was always interrupted by periods of staleness, I wanted the whole world to just stop doing stuff and moving forward, it's like I needed to rest for a bit. Like, wow, I really envy all of yall's prowess, you keep going and going and somehow you seem fine. I have barely gotten out of a maybe more than a decade-long period of depression. I call it that just so I can put a name on that mood, mentality, whatever it is that takes over me. Whatever it is that I feel powerless against. I never went to any psychiatrist, I was never diagnosed. It's just a word that to me describes a part of me that is depressed, demotivated, without willing or wanting to move.
It wants to stay put in this world, because moving here means I can't properly move in my head. It's a part of me that is deeply connected to my imagination.
Overtime, feeling that ''depression'' is an accurate word changed. It's been about three years of my actively trying to find my way out of the worst of it. A year ago I started thinking about myself as a person who has begun leaving it behind.
So that's where I'm at right now. I'm way more satisfied with myself, I am more active, I am more open with the people around me. I try not to dwell too much in my head, I am trying to see all the fun and interesting things that the world has to offer so that my imagination up there isn't always so tempting a place to escape to. Basically I've been in rehab - an imagination addict. And truth be told, in my darkest moments I literally couldn't imagine genuinely feeling like this now. That was unimaginable to me, a person who basically lived in her imagination. So, yes, I am happy. I am in uncharted territory.
But then, one amazing week passes by. I fight my deadness, I do things, I listen to people, I watch, hear, touch, learn learn learn. I get out of my comfort zone, I don't delay. I'm super satisfied. And then I feel overwhelmed with this need for everything to just pause.
I swear, when I was younger I used to play Sims a lot, and I so dearly and deeply wished I could just hit a pause button on time so that I can play Sims to my heart's content and then, reloaded and replenished, with all my emotional needs safely met, all my fictional lives lived out, I get to press play and I am back into the flow of life. I wanted that from the core of my being, to have that sort of pause available to me.
I can't seem to stay in the flow of life, is what's happening. I keep stopping by the side of the road to catch a breath and watch the trees. Feeling pissed that I feel so much discomfort in this race, feeling humiliated and ashamed that everyone is doing so much better than me and they don't even break a sweat. It's like everyone understands something I don't. Like they all obtained a secret speed-potion and they're like, "oh, you didn't know to find it near the Sacred LoveBerry Bush in the third Cave of the Butterflies underneath the Eternal Stars of Devotion? Sucks to be you." Like, how did everyone know? I don't stand a chance, I might as well just stay behind, spitefully, angrily. I'm so pissed. That's the feeling. I feel denied. Like some important knowledge, or consciousness has been denied to me. Who left me here like this? How do I get out of here? Everyone is sprinting off to their wives, children, careers, their friends and family and I am left here, always busy being a beginner it seems, in everything I do.
I am now in my first serious relationship. I now have my first serious job that I feel I can dedicate my time and energy to. I don't have such a panic fear of speaking in front of people. I feel like I am beginning to learn how to pick up the pieces of my life that always felt too broken and scattered all over the deepest unreachable bottom of my ocean.
But I think I said something important here, that I never said in that way before in my musings about this "state" of mine, the deadness, staleness, the need for rest and immobility. It happens when I feel denied?
One important thing when in childhood you keep being told how you're a talented and clever child is that - you start to think that effort is for untalented, ungifted, not-chosen-by-God pussies. And no one tells you that, you come to that conclusion on your own. At least I did. Because they told me wow! You drew this in ten minutes? I could never! I can barely draw a stick figure. And: Wow! You study for an hour and get an excellent grade while all your poor persistent sister ever does is study to be an excellent student. What would happen if you studied more!?
And thinking about it now, instead of taking all of those comments as motivators for me to experience the fullness of my unexplored potential, I just took my little pride feelings about my specialness, tucked myself in and went to sleep. I never worked for myself or for others. I just expected. And then when it didn't come I felt disappointed. When I didn't get what I wanted with minimum effort on my part, I would feel bad about myself because I'm not so special after all. I have to try. I have to make an effort, just like everybody else. And I have to face the fact that in doing and trying, one is bound to make mistakes. But for my special self mistakes weren't allowed. And that's how, studying at the Faculty of Applied Arts I managed to create the worst four years of my life - filled with anxiety, feelings of self-hatred, depression, constant fears of teachers, peers (who were also once talented and clever children)... I was scared to try anything, to make a mistake, I was scared to show the emptiness of my inner world. I felt like I'm rotten inside and I mustn't show it! Not for anything in the world can people know who I am really. A fraud and an arrogant little shit who doesn't know anything about life. I would almost bring myself to nervous breakdowns with delaying every assignment until literally the last hour. And then I would just hand it in as it is, a messy anxiety-filled first draft charading as a final, explored, thought-out piece, and I would feel relieved that it's over, that it's out of my hands and that I'm no longer responsible for it.
Anyway. Yes. Maybe my real rehab should actually be taking in the feeling of responsibility for myself, but in a new way. Being at peace with the fact that nothing is a given - something I say often yet I again understand it differently. Having no problem working for everything I want, accepting that it's the only way to get anything. And then finding myself in a position to be really grateful for anything that I do get, that I maybe feel I "don't deserve" - that I didn't consciously work for. Gratefulness is a magical feeling. And I really do feel I have to forget this attitude of entitlement. Working hard is not shameful. Dedicating time and effort to something is not embarrassing and "not-special". It's admirable and beautiful. I don't want to work to prove my worth. I want to work to try to build a world for myself, something I feel deeply is worth building - somewhere I want to stay instead of escape from into my imagination. And as I now can sense - it is exactly in my imagination that the roots of this world I want to build sprout from. So I guess that's where the outer and inner worlds meet?
Is that actually what it means to be an artist?
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