Why do the words just feel like nothing
Published as written in 2022 — unedited.
I think I feel frustrated when I create art because it seems like it should be such an open and honest transaction of emotions into the physical world. You follow what your instincts tell you, your emotions, feelings, sensations all influence how you create. Yet when I finish work I don’t ever feel like this gate is open, or functioning correctly, is it broken maybe? Is that why I keep making art so that one day I will get it right and I’ll be able to express all this emotional rawness that’s been lingering inside all this time?
Maybe when I figure out what exactly it is that feels “right” then I’ll be successful, but if I am successful will I then feel so complete by that piece of work I made that I will stop making artwork? Surely not. I can’t see my life without art in it, a continuous pursuit of clarity of existence.
Why does everything have to have a meaning or purpose? Why can’t things just be because they just are being? Does it even matter? I have so much to give and no real way to give it, how do I give and give and give until I have nothing left - but in a good way. I can give and give and then feel depleted and flat - that’s not good… I want to give my soul a reason to sing, my heart a reason to beat and my lungs a reason to take the biggest, most relaxed breath.
I want my busy mind to fill my habitat, my world, my physical landscape, my being, I want to share it with others, for them to see me for really who I am - there’s glimpses of me in what I do, tiny parts that manage to erupt through the cracks, yet I don’t think my freest most true self has ever made it out of the confines of my mind.
Does everyone feel like this? Am I alone? Am I crazy?
Why does my process of creation have to meet criteria set by outsiders, just so I can get a bit of paper that says I can do art? My process is organic, unique and won’t ever be seen or reflected correctly in numbers, grades and marks. The only person who can ever validate what I create is myself - I am still learning to trust myself on that.
It’s so hard to listen to your voice when your entire life has been masking and criticizing yourself, pressuring yourself to do better, be better. I was already good enough. I wish I could really believe myself when I write that.
I am good enough.
Why do the words just feel like nothing?
I am trying to have some kind of emotional release here, some connection with my inner self, realisations, truths… why am I not feeling like I am good enough. Maybe if I did then I would cry, I don’t know if that’s why I have the pain in my stomach, I have been trying too hard to be ok, how do you accept you are not okay, and that is okay?
I can tell my friends, family, ones I love that it’s okay to not be okay, to sit with the feeling, feel it, exist within and around it. Why can’t I talk to myself with the same compassion?
I am strong as fuck, have been through more than I wanted to ever have been through, I still have stuff to process, to say, and it’s okay if it takes time to get to a place where I am able to feel freer. I am safe. They say life is a journey.
This connection I am trying to create and strengthen is what is going to give me my drive and purpose back. Or maybe, it will just make me more able to deal with and manage life. Or maybe it won’t do any of that, that’s okay. I just want to try.
I don’t have to be “good” at anything. I just have to enjoy it, if it makes me feel alive then I will continue to try. If I become “good” at it then that’s nice, but what even is “good”, it’s so subjective to whomever looks at it, experiences it, hears it. They will always compare whatever I do to whatever they have been told is “good” by the society we live in.
I am sure it’s okay to sing badly, dance horrendously, laugh hysterically loud, cry more than an “average” human, yell occasionally - experience the full range of human emotions so colourfully. I remember not feeling these things and how cold and alone my life felt, I want emotion. It’s not weak.
Maybe I should do things “bad” on purpose, maybe I could start some revolution against the idea of “good” and “bad”, crush ideals in our messed up society that say we need to profit off our hobbies, treating all of us as capitalist cogs in a big outdated clunky machine. I don’t want to be in that old machine.
I am more than a part. I am a whole.
I have always felt pulled to do something, just never sure what, I try to follow my intuition but life can have ways of holding you back, I want to see through the fogginess and into some kind of glowy light.