Breakdown or Breakthrough
PART FOUR
The journey of an artist is not always easy. In fact, for most artists, it is rarely easy. From the outside, it is often hard to see the internal battle going on as art is not a team sport. It is a solitary undertaking. A journey of self-development and learning. On top of that life always throws a curved ball at the times we least expect it. This can derail our art journey at any moment and may it take years and sometimes never get back to creating again. Art is a fragile thing. It is hard to do well, it is hard to maintain and it can become lost so easily. It’s almost as if art never wants to be created. It makes us work for the rewards.Â
Although AI art is changing that dynamic. But that is a story for another time.
There are many things that can derail your art journey. Things like having a busy job. Even if you’re working in the creative industry, you don’t always get to use the full extent of your creativity. Everyday mundane things like work, paying bills, stress, relationships, family life, and distractions like the internet all can take us away from creating. Often the biggest and most serious challenge is health. It’s hard to be creative when you’re feeling like shit. Again the Ego wants to put itself front and centre. If you are sick then the Ego, being the perpetual drama queen magnifies it into the worst thing ever. That takes away a lot of the joy of simply creating. Of course, illness is no small thing, but when the wheels fall off, art is one of the first things that gets put aside.
I was also fiercely independent
This happened to me and it was the best thing ever, weirdly enough. I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome CFS in the 90’s and I ground to a halt. Up until that point, I was very ego-driven in relation to my art. I AM THE ARTIST sort of thing. I was also fiercely independent and never asked for help. If I couldn’t do something myself, I didn’t do it. Illness changed that. CFS is very debilitating. It saps joy and vibrancy out of life. Everything becomes hard. Even really simple things. Through the journey of CFS, my creativity simply stopped. I couldn’t create anything anymore. It was a surprise as it had been such a big part of my life since I could remember. It just stopped, but oddly enough, I didn’t miss it and I didn’t mourn it. It felt like it was put on hold and on holiday, not gone away forever.
I didn’t create anything for three years. I was ok with that as at the time, I was at my worst with CFS. At one stage I could only crawl from the bedroom to the toilet for a month. I needed care packages from my ex-partner so I wouldn’t starve and deprive my daughter of a father. During this time I had to kill my ego and ask for help. That would have been impossible previously and it wasn’t easy then but I had no choice. I had to ask for help. This allowed me to slowly rebuild my life. One thing that no one thinks of with CFS is the pain of it. Mostly we hear about how exhausted people are and not the pain. At least that’s how it was with me. CSF hurts. Nearly all joints hurt. Muscles hurt for no reason, Everything hurts for no reason and painkillers just don’t work. It’s not an intense pain, it’s just a constant background pain.
It didn’t take the pain away
The only thing I found that worked was cannabis. It didn’t take the pain away, but it took the pain and put it in the corner, so it wasn’t front and centre of my attention anymore. That allowed me to be open to other things, like looking at my well-being. Eating better, looking after myself and putting my attention to getting well again.
It also opened up something quite unexpected. My creativity came back. Not just in dribbles. It came back in a flood and was totally different to how it had been. From talking to many people about how they use cannabis and how affects them it mostly seems to do a couple of things. The main one seems to be to become a couch potato and zone out. It’s really good for that and it seems to be its default position. If you smoke dope and don’t do anything or expect anything it will just zone you out and you get nice and relaxed and can watch TV for hours and not remember any of it, but have a really good time.
What I found though, is that it is a remarkably controllable drug. More than any other substance I have tried. It opened doors to creativity. Previously, I felt that I had to drag the creativity and ideas out of me. There were plenty of them there, but it was work to get them out. Now, they just flowed like water. Like the floodgates were opened and I had to catch the ideas as they flowed past. There were more than I could catch in my lifetime. It didn’t mean they were all ‘great’ ideas. They were simply ideas with no value judgment. The main thing was the creative tap had been turned back on. It was so much better than before. This time I didn’t feel I had to be the creative genius. All I had to do was open the door and everything was waiting for me. I just had to grab an idea and execute it.Â
Connecting to the Universe
In a Taoist sense, I feel like I am connecting to the Universe and letting it flow through me. I am just a clever pair of hands. It’s not coming from me at all, but rather through me.Â
I have tried the experiment a few times to create from ego, just in case it was ego tricking me again. To see if my work was better if I channelled it or used myself to create it. The ego-created work was professional and did the job. Nothing wrong with it at all, but the channelled work had a sparkle. A certain something that couldn’t be defined, but you could see it was better. It was subtle, but it was there. That satisfied me to keep doing it in this new way.
I am in the zone writing this
Taking the ego out of my creative process has made a profound difference in how and why I create now. I now know that I can tap into that vast resource at any time I want anything, not just art ideas. I use it for everything in my life. I use it for cooking. I use it for creating boulder retaining walls. I use it for building. I can use it for simple things like mowing and brush cutting. It is a zone that I can get into and things just flow. Initially, for the first few years, I could only get there with cannabis. Now though, I haven’t smoked cannabis for about eight years, I don’t need it to get to that zone. It’s not as easy. It does take work, but I can still get into that zone pretty readily. Writing this article is an expression of that. I am in the zone writing this. It is flowing and all the parts are lining up just waiting to be downloaded as I need them. Sometimes there’s a bit of jostling about which idea wants to take centre stage, but mostly they are well-behaved and wait their turn.
The result of this is that I am not sure what to call myself anymore. I am more than an ‘artist’, as ‘art’ in a narrow sense is not what I do anymore. I am more of a ‘creator’ who turns that creativity into house design, cooking, landscaping, interior design, furniture design, fashion design, footwear design, sculpture, digital illustration, 3D illustration and much much more. The kicker I suppose is that I can’t give anyone a formula for how to do it. I can only relate my journey and hope that someone gets clues for how to do it for themselves. Everyone’s journey is their own and I don’t seek to diminish anyone’s journey or elevate my own. While CFS was horrible and a nasty journey, it did give me so much more than it took. It allowed me to develop a new and better relationship with myself and my creativity and I do appreciate it. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone goes out and has an experience like that to self-improve, but it did produce results for me.
Go and live your best, most authentic life!
Whatever your journey, it is your journey to manifest in whatever way you can. Life will throw curve balls at you from time to time. The only difference is how you deal with it. You can allow it to crush you or you can use it to grow. What seems like a breakdown might actually be a breakthrough.
Have you ever discovered a creative breakthrough in an unexpected way?Â
Share your story in the comments below!”