We’re told not to give in to our nature… not to give an inch to that lazy, unevolved part of you.
But don’t you feel a little bit feral doing that? Isn’t there a part of you that you try not to feel that’s like a squirrel in a box… desperately scratching at the walls?
Whether overtly or covertly the world tells us that creativity and artistic pursuits are for weekend hobbies in-between work, family, and doing life. There are more important things to focus on. You have things to DO!
But there comes a time in all of our lives in which we look around and feel the hollowness so deep that our bones groan and echo in the emptiness. If we leave out that part of ourselves, what are we building a life for? The hedonic treadmill is real. It’s so seductive.
If you leave a human alone and don’t give it what it needs– food, shelter, love, attention- they turn ravenous. Humans NEED tending. They will either fight tooth and nail to get what they need no matter the means. Or they will smother it, numb it, drown themselves in unhealthy coping mechanisms.
The creative part of us is no different. If that aspect of us (that we all have) is neglected, starved, and out in the rain, it will do to us the same thing that a starving human will do– it will rip you to shreds for the nourishment it needs.
That’s why Brent Brown’s quote strikes me as so true. And it took me so long to understand what it meant.
“Unexpressed creativity is not benign. It metastasizes. It turns into grief, rage, judgment, sorrow, shame. Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.” – Brene Brown
What if we didn’t dismiss the creative urges we feel? What if we listened to them and gave them even a scrap of attention and nourishment? What would become of our lives if we stopped living in efficient black and white and started taking the colorful way ’round? What then?
“The arts provide a viewpoint fundamentally different from the one that shapes most modern psychology. Through the artistic imagination we are liberated more by entering into our experiences than by being led out of them. The arts show us our souls, and therefore they are often deeply moving or sometimes profoundly disturbing. Unlike modern allopathic therapies, which tend to numb us to the pain in our predicaments, the arts sharpen the emotion and intensify the crisis of meaning. Psychology may talk abstractly about decision making and change, but a good film places us with all our senses and emotions in the ford of a river, bullets flying, horses falling, water rampaging.”
― Thomas Moore, The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
