Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I've finally learned to embrace the obvious. I'm depressed, I'm anxious, I'm medicated. Whatever.

Instead of fighting these things I'm going to have to maneuver around them. Without realizing it, I've already started this process. So I'm pretty far down the road now. And that's cool and kind of bittersweet because it means I will be depressed and anxious forever.
Art doesn't come from being happy though.
So there's that.

1 comment:

Corey said...

Hi Steph, it's Corey. I read your blog a bit at the beginning of the semester but fell behind and I'm reading back entries now and I sort of feel like a creep commenting on something you wrote 2 months ago but I also sort of don't care. Hahaha.

I always thought that art doesn't come from being happy. Then I read this:

"When I started meditating, I was filled with anxieties and fear. I felt a sense of depression and anger.
"I often took out this anger on my first wife. After I had been meditating for about two weeks, she came to me and said, "What's going on?" I was quiet for a moment. But finally I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "This anger, where did it go?" And I hadn't even realized that it had lifted.
"I call that depression and anger the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity. It's suffocating, and that rubber stinks. but once you start meditating and diving within, the clown suit starts to dissolve. You finally realize how putrid was the stink when it starts to go. Then, when it dissolves, you have freedom.
"Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they're like poison to the filmmaker or the artist. They're like a vise grip on creativity. If you're in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas."

It's from David Lynch's book. You might not agree - I'm still not sure I do - but it's something to think about. And if you want to borrow the book, I have it and you're welcome to it. ( :