"No one's ever been so loved by the people. Don't waste that power."
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
Am I Crazy?
Tonight I'm up at 3:57 a.m. editing a video. About potatoes.
After two hours of listening to focus groups discuss au gratin vs. cheesy I kind of wanted to die. So I got in the shower and almost actually died when my sister walked in unannounced (because of course I had been imagining people behind the shower curtain. And for a split second I thought she might be one of those people).
So for the rest of my shower I wondered, is everyone else as crazy as I am?
Maybe creative people are all hanging by a thread. Like we're pretending to be normal, but at any minute we could snap and the world would see us for who we really are - not borderline insane, but actually insane.
Is it normal to always hear the sound of your own thoughts louder than any noise around you? I think my fear of being alone at night has nothing to do with a fear of darkness...but the silence and emptiness that comes with darkness. The crack of a door, the brush of a shower curtain are enough to send violent shock waves through me. When my head is on my pillow I can hear full symphonies. I can wake up from a dream and feel the presence of nothingness so strong that it strikes me with panic. In the dark, material things stop speaking and invisible things take their turn - and the presence of them is so horrifying and delightful I'll never understand it.
It's this combination of sensuality and imagination that makes artists so stir crazy. We feel things and imagine things until eventually we're just imagining we're feeling things. After one of my faux break ups with someone I never dated, I remember grabbing a cab with my friends, sitting between them and having a near mental breakdown. Between sobs I kept saying, "I'm normal, I'm normal." To which my friend responded, "No you're not." Smiling. (because he's not normal either).
There are negative side effects to creativity, but every truly creative person will admit they kind of enjoy the torment. If someone told me they would flatten me out by taking away all of the fear, nausea, and jumping a foot in the air from the brush of a shower curtain (not to mention seeing people behind the shower curtain) I would be tempted to trade those things, but I could never follow through with it. Every time I've tried to take an easier road, the beauty always went with it.
It's a package deal. The heightened sensuality that makes you panic at night helps you write music. The thoughts that flood your head with nonsense sometimes manage to write themselves into beautiful stories that make people cry. And the ability to make people cry is not crazy. It's beautiful.
After two hours of listening to focus groups discuss au gratin vs. cheesy I kind of wanted to die. So I got in the shower and almost actually died when my sister walked in unannounced (because of course I had been imagining people behind the shower curtain. And for a split second I thought she might be one of those people).
So for the rest of my shower I wondered, is everyone else as crazy as I am?
Is it normal to always hear the sound of your own thoughts louder than any noise around you? I think my fear of being alone at night has nothing to do with a fear of darkness...but the silence and emptiness that comes with darkness. The crack of a door, the brush of a shower curtain are enough to send violent shock waves through me. When my head is on my pillow I can hear full symphonies. I can wake up from a dream and feel the presence of nothingness so strong that it strikes me with panic. In the dark, material things stop speaking and invisible things take their turn - and the presence of them is so horrifying and delightful I'll never understand it.
It's this combination of sensuality and imagination that makes artists so stir crazy. We feel things and imagine things until eventually we're just imagining we're feeling things. After one of my faux break ups with someone I never dated, I remember grabbing a cab with my friends, sitting between them and having a near mental breakdown. Between sobs I kept saying, "I'm normal, I'm normal." To which my friend responded, "No you're not." Smiling. (because he's not normal either).
There are negative side effects to creativity, but every truly creative person will admit they kind of enjoy the torment. If someone told me they would flatten me out by taking away all of the fear, nausea, and jumping a foot in the air from the brush of a shower curtain (not to mention seeing people behind the shower curtain) I would be tempted to trade those things, but I could never follow through with it. Every time I've tried to take an easier road, the beauty always went with it.
It's a package deal. The heightened sensuality that makes you panic at night helps you write music. The thoughts that flood your head with nonsense sometimes manage to write themselves into beautiful stories that make people cry. And the ability to make people cry is not crazy. It's beautiful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)