It’s a Saturday. The sky outside is a flat, dull grey with a gleam that can only be described as smug- “there is a sun behind the clouds” doesn’t get me my serotonin. I’m sat on the sofa wrapped up in blankets and regrets following a respectable Liverpudlian Friday evening, night and morning in all of their most (I emphasise) respectable establishments (ie. some clubs). I’m in the throes of a recent heartbreak, and although the wine has worn off now, the ground just doesn’t seem to stop spinning. Like any sudden life-change can muster I have all those essential doubts, fears and moments spent talking sternly to myself in the mirror. “You’ve got this” I say, trying to get the right kind of eye-contact in return but also not liking the attitude this person in the mirror is giving me. or I flash myself a sparkly smile, the kind provoked by a surprise connection with a stranger in the street before never seeing them again. Although not in this situation obviously.
I’m trying to find some perfect quote about how difficult times are often opportunities for personal growth and change, but after (bizarrely) pictures of Chicken Little kept popping up (his mouth wide in fear and despair) on Google Images, I gave up. There’s been everything from fitspo (“pain is just weakness leaving the body! Punks!”) to spirituality, which pretty much all had the backdrop of someone on one leg, in tree-pose in front of an acid orange sunset on top of a mountain, a stock image of someone to despise.
It’s struck me that all of this ‘motivational’ fodder that the internet seems to enjoy pumping out acknowledges nothing of the whole pulling-teeth process that a new stage in life entails- or maybe I need to sort out my echo chamber a little bit. The bottom line is this phantom low-calorie vegan-cake-baking, perfection-pushing part of the internet makes me feel bad for staying up til 4am eating cheesy chips when I should have been learning a new Shakespeare monologue (and probably bringing down the patriarchy as a side-hussle).
It can be easy to feel guilt after any kind of blowout. ‘What was I thinking?!’ swirling around the brain like a tissue in the washing-machine (ours’ is so vicious, it can make the pictures upstairs fall off the walls). It’s not like any of this is new- is a Friday night out so different from Dionysian revelry? Is it a coincidence that the same civilisation that brought the world a vast richness of culture, philosophy and science also liked a good party? Perhaps a little release in the name of Dionysius is just good for the soul?
Make no mistake, I’m in no way indorsing the ultimately Machiavellian figure of the self-righteous, self-medicating creative; the wine-soaked director, giggling godfather-gargling cast and the crew editing shots together whilst shotting tequila. I’m thinking more about the nature of creativity.
I feel like a creative’s mystical process is asked about, by just about anyone. Everyone from the self-serving interviewer, the child with a sparkle in their eye and a dream tucked away inside themselves- they all want to know the secret. Murakami running hundreds of miles to write hundreds of pages, Isaac Newton sitting under conveniently ripe apple-trees and she-who-will-not-be-named taking baths whilst waxing lyrical about wizards. Stories like these are always so random that alone it’s almost enough to make me reach for the merlot. The only thing stopping me might be the trek to Aldi that would involve, or maybe it’s this new thought I have. Maybe it’s that clinging onto what worked for the greats of creative thinking is exactly the opposite of what will help spark creativity. If one were to instead entertain the strange idiosyncratic neurosis that occurs to the individual, to embrace whatever fragment of one’s inner child is remaining, one can be emancipated from “long periods of horrible sanity” (Edgar Allan Poe). Instead of praying to the alters of the greats, following in their footsteps. By rejecting all notions of what should be by the standards set by society and our past, one can simply just be. And that’s all creativity is, right? The simple expression of one’s self- just being in the present.
I saw Medea at Bristol Old Vic with my drama class in 2017, and after which Akiya Henry (who played the titular woman herself) did a talk for the class. One nugget of that talk has stuck with me vividly ever since: the importance of doing exactly what one needs. Giving in to the tantrum-throwing, petty and demanding side of one’s inner child once in a while gives a certain vitality and magic to daily life; of freedom, playfulness, of creativity. Life was never supposed to make sense- no matter how many self-help books, structured timetables and self-flagellation-inspired habits you throw at it. Ithalia Forel talked about this in a Wicked Women session on confidence- that one of the pillars of confidence (and all the success and productivity that comes with it) is the ability to surprise ourselves. It’s easy to forget that the body/mind is damn smart and knows exactly what it needs, if only we’d be open to listening to it.
I suppose that rather than desperately scrolling through my Pinterest board for sickening quotes to rev me on with my day I should just relax and just let myself get on with it. After all, it can be easy to forget that having a career in something one actually likes means that generally the work is enjoyable. And, maybe, just letting one’s self have a nice long afternoon drawing, playing the guitar or making pasta, or whatever it is, will let us shake off the shackles of the procrastination like raindrops so we can finally bask in our abundant selves- being both Apollonian and Dionysian (thanks for that tip at least Nietzsche…), productive and creative at the same time (wine-soaking is optional).
References:
Disney movie Chicken Little, a letter by Edgar Allan Poe, Nietzsche’s ‘The Birth of Tragedy’, the thoughts of Akiya Henry, the wonderful movement specialist and motivational speaker Ithalia Forel (Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ithaliaforel/?hl=en) and the wonderfully wicked Wicked Women creative development programme (https://www.tmesistheatre.com/train-with-us/wicked-women-creative-development-for-young-women/).
Featuring a Google Images, Medea and the imitable ancient Greek god Dionysius.
Cover photo is me in a production of 'Cloud 9' at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, directed by @willsherriffhammond and @creepingmiasma (photo credit to @andrewabphotography ).
Comments