“What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.”
VINCENT VAN GOGH
When I mention Vincent van Gogh, many people would probably know who I am talking about. For those that don’t, he was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who became one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of art, only after his death. He was never commercially successful; a standard and measure of success I’m sure was as seemingly important as it is today. He was an utter failure by the standards existent then and still present today and because of that and more, at 37 years, he committed suicide, after years of depression and poverty, and even though he had been born into an upper-middle-class family. He suffered psychotic episodes and delusions and even though he constantly worried about his mental stability (in an argument once, he even severed his own ear), he often neglected his physical health eating badly and drinking way too much.
He became famous after his death and exists in our minds as a poster boy for the “tortured artist” and its syndrome. Of himself he said, “I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost mind in the process.” He also said, “A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passer-by only see a wisp of smoke.” He was a terribly lonely and passionate artist, giving of himself to his art in dreaming and painting till nothing was left, but the dissonance so expressed by his mental afflictions. His loneliness is one that many artists can relate to, from the pain of being misunderstood and unreceived or unaccepted by the audience we usually express ourselves to. It is deeper than the desires of fame and celebrity. It is the fundamental need within us all to be accepted and affirmed in who we are by our fellow human; and most times, in fact, that is not the case. We feel strange, bizarre, flawed and evidently different from everyone else unlike us. Of this loneliness, Frida Kahlo said, “I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are not her and read this and know that yes, it’s true I’m here and I’m just as strange as you.”
The trope of the tortured artist is a stereotype of an artist in constant torment due to frustrations with art, other people or the world in general and is usually associated with mental illness. This is because there has been this link in so many artists’ lives and stories- between their creativity, and their mental suffering because of it. Van Gogh said, “I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” He painted to live and dwell in the world of his dreams and in his painting, put down what he saw, and what he felt in seeing it. He was alive in some part of himself in this process even though because of it, another part of himself was suffering and dying. There was a painful contradiction from his choice to stay true to who he was, whose penalty was a mental affliction for being and feeling different, and the manifest disparity between himself and others because of it.
Lewis Carroll said, ” Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality” and I believe that to be true, from what I see around me and within me. I think a thing missed the most in studying the nexus between creativity and mental health, is the reason for creativity in the first place. Because of this, I feel there is a misplaced emphasis on the effect; and not the cause. Creativity is not the cause of mental health issues experienced by most artists and so prominent, that so much in popular culture and psychological study has been coined concerning the two. Creativity is a way we survive the cause of our mental affliction, because the cause of our mental affliction is life. Life is the cause. We create because life impresses all this suffering, and this suffering must be processed in our minds with every emotional reaction- because we are metacognitive beings always thinking about our thoughts.
All alive suffer in some form, and yes, the suffering of some is greater than the suffering of others, but we all find a way to survive. We have to. This is the fruit of all our mental efforts and it is done so we may find solutions to our suffering or in the very least, reduce the pain of it; through our philosophies and their expressions in our actions. We pour ourselves into our work because we understand the cause and effect in these times, and the rules of society in the world; if you don’t have a job, you most likely struggle with accessing basic needs, because the systems of capitalism require us to exchange money for the things, we need to keep alive, and that money is typically received as a salary. So yes, you’d survive by becoming a workaholic to have what to eat and where to sleep, but also to distract yourself from how difficult it is to survive, to take in that society goes on in a contentment with that existent absurdity, and to dwell less on the emotional rollercoaster these facts take you on, each time you think of them and their implications.
In the same way, we turn to religion, science, wellness, social success, sex, drugs and death to deal with and escape from the reality of our suffering, inevitable in the living of life. We also turn to art, because in it, like with religion, science, wellness, social success, sex, drugs and death, we can employ our imagination to war against our fears and insecurities that come free to us, by virtue of being human. I feel this opinion regarding this relationship about mental health and creativity is aided by the fact that most studies find little to no scientifically provable reason to support their apparent connection. On the face of most studies’ research, their conclusion is usually that creative people are liable to mood disorder, but there is little evidence that a mental illness makes you more creative or conversely, that one is mentally ill because they are creative. As Van Gogh also said, the seemingly remain conclusion is that, “Art is to console those who are broken by life.”
The facts remain; most creatives suffer with mental health issues; and yes, the suffering of life causes us to suffer in our minds; furthermore, there is no scientific link between creativity causing mental illness or illness causing creativity, but creativity is one of the ways we deal with suffering because, how else do we make living hurt less? Life does suck, and we have art to help us so the conclusion would be, we need to make more art to literally survive? It seems pretty bleak, doesn’t it? And that exactly, by writing all I have written, would be my point. It is bleak. Creatives suffer because unlike others, through their art and because of it, they live in other worlds, but are forever in their lives and consciousness, tethered to this world. The suffering is in making the choice to choose the brilliance and repose from art in and with art, and yet also exist in a world of suffering; where most of its inhabitants would run mad from the agony of the duality. Why would artists be exempt to that anguish?
In Pavlov’s conditioning experiment, the meat is a world of joy, and rest and sense and happiness, and we are the leashed dog, salivating to literal death for a chance at that-our heart’s only desire. This world is a prison; not just because of its suffering and that we are trapped to experience that suffering, but because in survival, the audience would choose to imagine Sisyphus happy. Of what relevance is it to then present to them, something they would rather not see- Sisyphus as he really was pushing that boulder up the hill again and again- unhappy.
The artist cannot do that. The true artist will not pretend that Sisyphus is happy when he isn’t. Just like the dog who would keep salivating unpreventably, in an honest reaction to his desire; for the meat of a happier world, an artist would tell the truth, in every way and form, because they cannot help it and would be miserable trying to. It is precisely from Sisyphus’ suffering, that the artist draws his inspiration to speak, because Sisyphus’ suffering is his own. In telling Sisyphus’ story, he is telling his own and in telling his story, he is heard and he is seen. We all are pushing a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down and again, have to creatively and imaginatively engage in the uphill task of living.
The conclusions about this post are miserably bleak because something has to give for life to be less bleak, or even promising. Until then, I saw what I see and perceive. In that balance for artists like Van Gogh, the thing that usually gives, is ourselves-our minds; our precious minds. Mental Health awareness and Psychology teach us that we can be creative, facing the cognitive dissonances thrashing painfully in our minds because we exist not just in this prison world but also in the worlds art opens the doors to, and not have to meet Palov’s dog’s fate. We shall not die from the agony. Even while we suffer in feeling the truth with our art, we do not have to die. The mental sufferings that cause our minds and nervous systems to rewrite themselves from the trauma of life are not unconquerable, even though they are unavoidable. There is indeed a grace to suffer and live a full and meaningful artistic life, if we would choose to be responsible with the same freedom within which we make the choice to suffer, for the sake of being true to ourselves. Let us be true to the duty to be true to ourselves, because however lonely it might feel, you can live through it.
Let not the one who can see deny his sight, or the one who can hear deny his hearing.
My portion of suffering bestowed by life is aggravated by the fact that I am an overthinker and unavoidably, because of that I get lost in my thoughts sometimes. As if that isn’t enough, there is the “over-think-get-one-free” package of feeling more deeply and intensely, and once again predictably, I drown in my emotions sometimes too. I have been like this for as long as I can remember and I don’t know what life would have been like if I didn’t have art. To keep track of my thoughts and to vet my emotional reactions about life, I began writing. I have shelves of notebooks from my early adolescence (about 13 and 14) filled with writing because I am always writing. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (a mood disorder where you swing between mania to depression) and have been trying to figure out to function “normally” ever since. There’s progress sometimes and relapses other times. The writing helps, in addition to so much more I had to take up to do better at dealing with the suffering of life. I am an artist in many ways because of the way I process and experience suffering. There in it, is a reason I write songs when I’m sad and not happy. There in it, is a reason my songs are usually grave and serious. I believe it is because I feel and think deeply. It is why I enjoy the true, serious and grave tragedies- because I feel my art carries the overflow in myself from true, serious and grave tragic life experiences, in and around me. I feel I sing a similar song with such art. I am simply witness to the same unhappiness of Sisyphus they felt and saw in their societies and communities and hearts.
This is my lot.
Jean-Paul Sartre, said, “We suffer because we are free”. He said, “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” I believe creatives like myself suffer because we choose to suffer in staying true to being artists, when a lot about it doesn’t make sense in the prison world, because of its laws and systems. To choose suffering is lonely because, not many would take the path where suffering is not just a probability, but something to draw from in making art, and therefore unavoidable. We choose to be who we feel we are in this prison world, which by and because of its rules would create societies that would censor art- that would tell us we haven’t heard what we have heard, or seen what we have seen; by social systems that would subject us to a different value system and have us come in last because we chose another. We choose to be who we feel we are as artists, not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary to have a meaningful life, otherwise, what is the point of life at all?
Bronte. Plath. Van Gogh. Cobain. Woolfe. Dickinson. Dostoyevsky. Mozart. Winehouse. These artists and more died before they truly knew what impact their art would have. They died because of poverty and the depression and overdoses that drove them to death from the loneliness of their journey. They art was too bleak and depressing because it told the truth-their truth. Their art was too true for the people of their times to bear and understand. Their art was too true for it to be sufficient in helping them deal with the sight and feeling of life, for they to, felt and felt everything deeply; they needed art to say what could not be said with just words. Kierkegaard. Camus. Austen. Beethoven. Tolystoy. These artists also told a bleak and depressing-truth. They told the truth existent around them and even though they suffered in making their way because of the rules of the prison world, they were received, and they knew of it in some way. Their lives weren’t very long, they were short; but see how their art has lived on.
Truth is the testimony of our souls, and just like them, will never die.
We are artists who have all these stories, and fellow witnesses that came before us. Because of them, and their unintentional sacrifices, we are encouraged to be who we truly are. There is a way to survive as an artist today; you don’t have to die in poverty. There is a part of our social systems that would accept our value system. There is the science and understanding of our psychology and its mechanisms so I can be bipolar and still live a full life. The choice and responsibility to “suffer” in this way as artists, doesn’t have to be as some of these stories were. The prison world indeed adds to our suffering as artists indeed, but there is a way, and only you can carve it out for yourself.
Even though we live in a prison world, we are free because we can choose to be.
Even it’s hard, from our suffering, something beautiful springs, and because of it, the shackles fall to the ground.
Be responsible with your freedom, by being true to yourself and who you are.
Be free.
You can make art because you are free. And most importantly, as a creative and artist, if you are struggling with your mental health, reach out because you are not alone.
“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”
FRIDA KAHLO
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