I know that the past few months and weeks have been anything but normal. Many of us are struggling to find new ways to work, experiencing different ways of being in this world. I know first hand how hard it can be to find a way to work through this. This time of physical distancing has left many of us isolated, and tired. Our sense of time is gone. Our daily structures wiped out. It is hard to find your footing when it is all changing under your feet with each step. It is hard to find vibrance, inspiration, passion when we are dealing with our own feelings.
I am prone to just shut down when I am overwhelmed. Eventually, my brain will process things but, in the meantime, I will consume every piece of media I can get my little hands on. It is easy. It is convenient. In some ways, it has been soothing (thank you Final Fantasy VII Remake). Yet this is also not productive in any sort of way. I spend my nights counting down to bedtime and then not going to bed. It is an unhealthy cycle, one that is easier and easier to fall into with each year. I wasn’t writing. I wasn’t drawing. I was just consuming.
Yes, shutting out the confusion and the pain and the fear can be a healing balm in troubled times. We each need to take care of ourselves. For me, this was accomplished by consuming media. Yet at the end of the day, I felt empty and my feelings were still there. I get the same sense of loss from some of my friends. We are stuck. Not really creating anything. Not really working or anything. We are just kicking the can down the street, ignoring something obvious, that we have stopped creating. For many of us, our art is not just a thing we do, it reflects ourselves and our times. We process things by putting them into art. Shards of our fears, and uncertainties right there on the canvas so we can manipulate and stretch and pull it apart. Dreamers and artists right now are having a hard time because we interact with this world in a physical way. We cannot soothe our fears by turning off our brains. Instead, we have to understand it by creating something with all of those feelings.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert, Dune
This time of isolation will not last forever. We will see life slowly returning to normal over the next few months, like flowers blooming in spring. It is a serious threat. One that is scary. One that can feel like a looming disaster. When we see the suffering of our neighbors and those affected most by this virus it is ok to turn away. I want to invite you to try something else today. Instead of locking those feelings down, instead of denying their effects on our lives, just let them in. Let the raw emotion flow through you and into the pages of your work. It won’t be great. More than likely it will be downright bad but it’s not about quality. It is about reclaiming a part of your life back. It’s saying to the world that you are still here. It’s our little way of fighting back. It’s a start.
So much of what happens next with this pandemic depends on us. Will we become vegetative, like the humans in Wall-E or will we experience a flowering of culture like we saw in the Renaissance? It is up to each of us to take back our time, and reclaim what was once ours. Write, draw, paint, sing, whatever it is that gave you life before this virus stomped through our lives. Reclaim your passions and chase your dreams! Your dreams only stop when you do!