IN RECENT DAYS I’ve been contemplating whether or not I’d
write things on this otherwise upbeat blog I’ve got here that might seem
“negative”…but an old friend of mine used to complain that my writing (back
then) was so funny and fun and why, he’d asked, did I never write about all the
terrible things that have happened in life or how I really feel at times. It
struck me at the time, and I have since started to write about the darker side
of life as well as the brighter. We are all made up of the things that create
our world: some of them we chose; some we most certainly did not. Balance is
about light and darkness too, and our life experience has elements of both. And
too many people in this world want to hide how they really feel. “How are you?”
people ask. When I tell them, they say they’re sorry they asked sometimes. “It
is wise,” I tell them, “not to ask a question if one does not want a sincere
answer.” That’s the Taoist Sage in me I suppose.
So lately I’ve been in an upheaval, in particular regarding
an injury I have that is getting much worse as time passes. Having the same
things come back in a circle to one’s life again when they hoped they would not
is enough to alter one’s entire outlook and day to day existence even: look at
Poe and his life, having his wife at death’s door over and over again. Well
today in response to a very sincere blog post by a woman whose indie comics I
adore, I wrote something similar to what is below. Here I have changed it so it
isn’t an obvious response-format to any one person.
I’m envious of the fact that other artists/ writers can
actually work on their stuff: I have been unable to do much drawing due to
injures that I suffered a few years ago that are getting progressively worse. I
think also that being “depressed” about it is also preventing me, though I do
continue to write and develop stories I’ve been working on.
What disturbs me in this culture is the fact that the
medical “profession” sees individual aspects of a person’s life as diseases
that should be covered up or gotten rid of. I have learned that this is bunk,
and that all such things as “depression”, “anxiety”, “trauma” or whatever they
pull out of their book of labels are actually legitimate voices from within a
person’s soul, and they’re there so we can pay attention to them and where they
come from. They are part of the myths that make up our lives.
You know what a myth is? It isn’t a story that isn’t true:
it’s an expression of something that is so real that there is no other way of
expressing it than by some metaphor. And this sometimes takes the form of us
hurting ourselves, or hiding, or even suppressing our creativity, or being
unkind to ourselves in other ways. By trying to “cure” these very real things,
I suppose they are being suppressed; which means they’re not likely to just “go
away”: at least not forever. And sometimes they burst out of the closet they
get crammed into, all of a sudden and all at once.
My middle name is Yana. I always tell people it’s an acronym
for “You-Are-Not-Alone”. Thoreau once said “the great mass of men lead lives of
quiet desperation” and I think he’s right. Some people just hide it better than
others—and others are oblivious. I think creative people have the desire to
tell our myths, for our own sakes, if for nobody else’s. Maybe that’s how we’ll
get through them, like characters living through some story—even a horror story
like I have lately written—not out of an interest in such things, but because
they are born of things too real in this mythic metaphor to be expressed otherwise.
For myself, I do not put stock in suppressive forms of
“therapy” and also I feel that it isn’t very easy to somehow work through one’s
issues merely by talking about them. At least that can’t be our only
expression. Also, I find society is afraid—that is why they suppress “mentally
ill” people, so it makes them feel “safer” and life is predictable for them.
That is likely why some folk feel embarrassed about how they feel and that they
sometimes haven’t wanted even to tell their friends, as one doesn’t know the
reaction. I tell you it is our genuineness as people that is causing us to go
through the things we do. Because we know our self and our inner creative world
is speaking to us. We don’t feel the ways we do for no reason. We cannot hide
such things—I will not live an unlived life or worry about what others say; I
cannot live a life of quiet desperation, when I can still speak or yell.
I’ve done a good deal of “experimental living” in my life,
which has included living without money for 18 months (on purpose), pretending
to be a homeless person and dressing in rags in a major city to feel what it
was like, and lots of other things to make me understand society. One time,
years ago, I was riding the underground railway and there was a woman sitting
opposite me. She was holding a rose. You could see her struggling, trying to
keep herself from crying in public. I was with a roommate. I couldn’t stand it
anymore, so I started crying so everybody in the train was staring at me. My
roommate said, “What’s wrong?” I said, “That lady wants to cry so badly but
she’s afraid to do so on here—and if she won’t cry, by god I’ll cry for her.”
She started crying then. “I’m so proud of you,” I said.
Yesterday I was sitting disconsolate on a bench thinking
about giving up and this young woman came up and sat with me and I told her
about my life. She genuinely wanted to listen and be kind and helpful to me,
even though we’d never met. I guess that gave me some hope: that some stranger
actually cared about my life and fate. She asked me why I keep going, as I feel
so bad. “I don’t know,” I told her, “I think it’s because I have stories to
tell—about my life and what it’s meant to me—the horrors and the beautiful
things. It’s all me really. It would be terrible if nobody heard that; so I go
on so they can hear it and so that I may tell them.”