Create, creativity, creator

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/article/250614?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=general_marketing

Dang.

It's long, it's raw, and I think it speaks some truth to those struggling with what it means to be an artist.

It's fascinating.

I can see the yearning - to create and to express oneself. I'd forgotten about that side of me too.

Here are some nuggets I enjoyed:

"Darkness is acceptable and even attractive so long as there is a threshold that is not crossed."

It's so true! To see it and think we understand darkness, or to commiserate ("Yeah, that must suck") is one thing. To go through such darkness, to the depth of the one who is truly suffering, is yet another.

"That your pathetic little thing is not interesting to anyone but yourself."

"I think everyone wants to make something touchable, but most of us don’t out of fear of being laughable. I’m not saying I’m fearless."

Sometimes, I relate, and sometimes, I feel like I'm on the other side, deriding myself for being so dramatic. Ugh. It's that despair that I feel when I think that my "art" or whatever you want to call it is worthless to everyone but me.

To be an artist, I feel like you have to be willing to be just different enough to be accepted as cool, but not different enough for people to find you inaccessible (though this is debatable).

We are a generation of the self. I am not happy. I want this. I want that. I feel like we're the generation that feels the need to express ourselves and that expression comes out in art, music, poetry, writing, etc. Everyone wants to write and everyone seems to have a story to tell. What does it all matter then?

Oddly though, I feel like we're also one of the most peaceful and generous generations. But then again, all my ideas of what "our generation" is filtered by media and social media alike.

I still like to believe in the capability for humanity to be good.