Sarah
When I was 15 I went to yearbook camp. Five days of advanced yearbook writing at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA. I was scheduled to be the copy editor of the high school yearbook, meaning I would have the final say on every piece of text in an $80 publication likely to be purchased by 1200 people. My school thought I could use some training.
So I went to Gettysburg. I ended up in a dorm room with no roommate. The only person I knew within 100 miles of me was Patrick, my next-door neighbor turned editor-in-chief. When I saw him in the cafeteria the first night, I waved and he turned away. There were no other rising sophomores in my class; I thought my classmates viewed me suspiciously. They did not talk to me, but they talked to each other in accents West Virginian, southern Pennsylvanian, North Carolinian. The second day I tried to make a comment in class; my voice cracked and drawled. It did not sound like me. I realized I had not spoken since the afternoon before.
That night eating dinner alone in the bustling college cafeteria, I took a bite of my chicken and realized what looked like chicken was actually fish. I cried. No one came to comfort me. I was so, so lonely.
My yearbook teacher was a pompous, fat-bellied man who taught for who knows what reason. He prided himself on being a young cousin of Strom Thurmond. He described himself as “virile.” He was condescending and sarcastic, and for two days, he did not look in my direction. A class assignment the third day: Go outside. Observe something. Describe it. (Inventive pedagogy here.)
I moved outside slowly. I sat in a shady corner and looked out onto the bright courtyard where my classmates paired, cozy and chatting. I looked back to the dark grass next to me and wrote the words that felt truest. They were something like: “Oh acorn. Nature’s tiny David…”
Mr. Pompous loved it. Mr. Pompous loved my writing. All of it. Every single thing I wrote that week. “You are a master,” he said. “You get a 5+++.” He stopped me one day as I headed out of class: “You are one of the best writers I have ever known. You are Nature’s tiny David.”
I rode that week and its loneliness and my newfound writerly confidence all the way back to school. Where I promptly regained my friends and my busy life and lost my ability to write anything magical and true.
Okay, not promptly and not fully. But seriously. There is nothing inspired in the text of the 1996-1997 Sayville High School yearbook. I promise.
Which is all to say: I write my best—my very, very truest and best—when I am lonely and discontented. Lonely as all get out. Discontented in a blue, blue way.
I do not know if it always has to be this way. Though corroborating evidence abounds. Prodigy and madness; profundity and depression. Tennessee Williams. David Foster Wallace. Van Gogh. It’s stupid to make this list. It includes almost every genius who has ever lived. Need we be tortured to be poignant and productive? Need we be lonely? Need I?
I don’t even have enough angst to make these questions sound urgent to me. Do they sound tinny to you too?
I’d rather choose Manfriend. To that end, I’m sorry for this lame post. I have, it turns out, been very, very happy of late. Pity.
51 comments
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January 11, 2010 at 3:00 am
Adam Findley
I’ve always felt that the best music has come from melancholy artists. Radiohead had an absolutely wretched time touring in 1997 (as evidence in the film “Meeting People is Easy”) despite amazing performances and two torturous years afterward. From that dark, despondent place came my favorite album of all time: Kid A.
Dave Matthews Band was on the cusp of producing their best album, but became too depressed to finish it and scrapped it. (Thankfully it was released to the Internet as the Lillywhite Sessions.) They found out how to be happy, made three unimpressive albums and finally at the death of their band mate created a rather fantastic album which will stand as a loving tribute to him.
You’ll never be among so many as when you are creatively lonely.
January 11, 2010 at 3:01 am
Adam Findley
Finally, you many literary masters who I know read this blog: When will the capitol I in Internet die? Why did we think that was a good idea anyways?
January 11, 2010 at 7:46 am
Jane Payne
You just broke the mold.
January 11, 2010 at 8:41 am
living in zion
I have noticed the same phenomenon with my own creative efforts. I do my best thinking and feeling when I am wallowing in misery.
When I read the Book of Mormon, it seems to be one long really, really bad day with lots of peoples descriptions on coping. It find it uplifting and comforting.
The neat thing about life is that misery happens. Right now you are in love (I hope!) and all is wonderful. With the same height of giddiness you currently feel, will come your first couple fight and you will be emotionally thrown to the ground, once again seeing the world darkly.
The best cure for creative bleakness that I know of is to hang out with young children. Being with young folks automatically makes me reach for the brightest crayons in the box. My creativity changes from morbid and introspective, to sunshine and roses.
A nice foot massage has the same effect.
January 11, 2010 at 9:02 am
nakiru
It’s a proven fact in my blogging history…when I’m happy, I write less. In this case, Sarah, this is a good thing.
January 11, 2010 at 10:41 am
JoLyn
From my point of view, I’d say you’ve still got it! Maybe happiness becomes you. 🙂
January 11, 2010 at 11:45 am
Em
I asked a friend once how things were going with her boyfriend. She said he was doing great, especially since he was on medication for depression. He was a much easier person to live with. She then told me how hard it was for him to be on medication. Though he felt much better and was nicer to her, he felt like his creativity had been flushed down the toilet the minute his depression melted away.
Funny how happiness does that to us no? I’m with you though – I’ll take contentment over sadness, no matter how boring that makes me.
January 11, 2010 at 11:50 am
Laura
Okay, you’ve hit on one of my pet peeves by the mere inclusion of Starry Night. I apologize for my rant in advance.
I’m not sure I know the answer, but I wanted to at least point out one thing. Van Gogh wasn’t tortured because he was an amazing artist. Van Gogh was tortured because he had a mental condition. (I know this isn’t exactly what you were saying, but I think people make that jump too often.)
He kind of becomes our example of the ULTIMATE artist because he was so unbalanced, but the idea that artists should be unbalanced wasn’t even around until the Romantics started taking opium and having scandalous affairs.
Leonardo was arrogant, but lived a pretty balanced and happy life. Artemisia Gentileschi was a mother. Jasper Johns, maybe the most important contemporary visual artist, lives quietly in Sharon, Connecticut.
Garrison Keillor? Annie Dillard? Richard Selzer? Plenty of good writing can flourish in happiness.
January 11, 2010 at 11:54 am
Laura
On another note, I’m going to start describing myself as fertile.
January 11, 2010 at 11:59 am
Melissa
When I’m writing under the influence of melancholy, I’m more likely to get the sense I’ve written something profound. But when I read that stuff later, I often realize I was not only depressed, I was delusional. I guess I’m no Edgar Allan Poe.
There’s a fellow by the name of Peter Kramer who goes around writing and lecturing about depression. He says depression is the new tuberculosis (you know, as far as artists go) and warns against glorifying the disease as a source of creative genius. I don’t know what I think about that. I guess I mostly just think it’s interesting.
January 11, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Zina
Before the boom in cutesy trendy Everywoman blogs, I would surf the blogs of strangers and most seemed to be written by very angst-ridden souls indeed. In general the writing was not at all superior to that of the cutesy trendy blogs of today, although the content was sometimes perhaps more gripping, but not in an admirable or enviable way.
I agree with Laura that the concept of artist as sufferer is a relatively recent one, and that it has its drawbacks. On the other hand, I do think that for a work to be really compelling and have broad appeal, it does need to be “challenging” by dealing with troubling questions. But then again, I’m glad when artists are able to take on tough questions and yet come to relatively sunny and optimistic conclusions.
January 11, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Amanda
I think we “give up” a lot for happiness. Had I not married my (wonderful) husband, I probably would have continued my research in physics. I loved research. Had I not had my (absolutely adorable, perfect, wonderful) monster of a 2 year old boy, I probably would have started teaching on the college level. Or gone to get my PhD. I love school. But I love my family more. There are others who choose another route and I admire that (research and school over family); I admire their ability to be content with what they know, their ability to do what they love despite what others say. Just as I find strength in my ability to walk away from the “known”, the secure, the comfortable for something that had the potential to be either wonderful or awful.
I’m not making any sense. Maybe it’s because I’m (generally) happy.
January 11, 2010 at 12:40 pm
sarahlolson
Adam I, excellent examples both. I feel bad being grateful for other people’s tragedy and heartbreak, but I’ve gotten so many fine pieces of media out of it. Maybe I’m just benefiting from other people’s silver linings?
Adam II, it will die. Personally, I think it’s already dead. I’ve killed it in my lexicon. I’m pretty sure we started using it because it was a proper noun. Am I wrong? Someone probably named it the Worldwide Internet. Bam. And we were off.
Jane, thank you, Ms. Gracious.
Living in Zion, I love your point about the Book of Mormon and about children. “Being with young folks automatically makes me reach for the brightest crayons in the box.” True for me too. I wonder why.
Nakiru, that’s the thing that’s interesting to me about this phenomenon–I see it played out in my own life. Evidentiarily speaking. So interesting to me. But yes, in many, many ways, a good thing.
JoLyn, “Maybe happiness becomes you.” That is a lovely thing to say. Thank you for that.
Em, a family member of mine said a similar thing. He said his medication was making it easier to live but harder to think creatively, to think sharply, to produce. I wasn’t sure what I wanted for him. Happiness, yes. But good goo he’s talented. And who wants to live in a fuzzy world? I don’t know, I don’t know.
Laura, you’re 100% right. 100%. But do you really feel there is NO connection between inner torture and artistic productivity/success? I think you’re right–the one is not the other. Crazy is not genius. There are certainly crazies who are not genius. But when I push that farther and say, there is no connection, that feels false too. Especially as I look to my own experience. I really really do write less when I’m happy. I just have fewer things to say it turns out. Very weird. Also, your examples raise questions–good ones–about who we are to be able to identify someone else’s life as tortured. Especially if we never personally knew them. I sort of glibly threw my examples together, but I thought there was enough evidence on record for Van Gogh, DFW, and TW to be called tortured. But Annie Dillard–I’d call her tortured too. If I remember correctly, her Pulitzer-Prize-winning book was written while she was recovering from a life-threatening illness and she was all alone (at least essentially) for years. And I think she’s been married three times. It seems likely that was attended to by some inner torture. But even if she had never been divorced. Even if she were still married to Mr. Dillard. She could still be tortured? Or happy? Right? It’s hard to call someone else’s heart. Anyway. I’m just thinking out loud now. Re: fertile. Is that so you can be the Mrs. to Mr. Pompous’s virile? I like it better as your way of describing how maternity can translate into your own prolific creation? Sort of like Minerva Teichart maybe.
Melissa, okay. Fair point. Maybe the stuff I write when I’m lonely feels good but really it isn’t. (Are you saying you don’t think “Nature’s tiny David” sounds like Pulitzer-Prize material?) Though there is something about productivity. I’m much less likely to have something to say when I’m happy. It makes me feel good as someone who’s trying to be more concise. But as a practical, weekly blogging, writerly goalling matter–it’s totally lame. Re: Peter Kramer–that’s a good watchman. Though it’s interesting to me that TB was glorified as a source of creative genius. It would seem to me that if every generation chooses a new iteration of torture to link to genius that might provide some corroboration that there is a connection between torture in general and genius. But mostly I’m concerned about me, of course. I don’t want to be Edgar Allan Poe, but I’d take Annie Dillard. Maybe Anne Morrow Lindbergh? But she was married to a Nazi and had her baby famously kidnapped (and killed?). Maybe we all have torture. That’s to be considered. And we write or we don’t write. Produce or don’t produce. Independent of our torture. Like this comment. It’s torturously long. I now expect you to write something brilliant after you’ve read it. Just saying.
Zina, yes! That’s a point I should have but did not make. I’m not saying that I think that I think all art should be tortured. Should reflect torture in a way that comes out darkly or sadly. I’m much more of a smiling realist than a bleak realist. But work that is challenging, that deals with real troubling questions in a real and honest way, seems to me to necessarily be the production of someone who has been troubled in a real and honest way. Even if it comes out well/positively (as I almost always hope it does). So that’s important. I just wish I felt more like writing when I was happy.
Amanda, trade-offs. Yes? Yes. I’m working on being even more okay with that than I was. But not too okay? See. I’m tortured about it. But I do think this: I have no desire to have you feel anything but happy about feeling happy. Happiness is not incompatible with depth. As Anna Kohler Lewis used to say to me when I would say I was shallow: “Just because you can see to the bottom doesn’t mean it’s not deep.” Happiness is the same way, yes? Happiness does not have to be shallow. That Tolstoy quote about happy families all being happy in the same way notwithstanding.
January 11, 2010 at 12:41 pm
sarahlolson
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Leo Tolstoy, from Anna Karenina (yes?)
I think this is false. But also true. But maybe more false than true.
January 11, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Louise Plummer
I find I can’t write about extreme emotion either positive or negative. I can describe what happened, but I can’t describe the emotion. I’ve never written about the births of my sons, or my lung surgery or my wedding day, or Tom’s pituitary surgery or the bottom of the barrel depression. I figure bits and pieces of those experiences will show up in my fiction.
I loved “Oh acorn, nature’s tiny David.” Loved that.
January 11, 2010 at 1:00 pm
EvaK
My manfriend just found out ten minutes ago that’s he’s leaving NYC and moving back to Salt Lake. I guess I should get a pen and paper, cause I’m about to be the loneliest, greatest writer known to man…
January 11, 2010 at 1:03 pm
living in zion
Sarah,
Let’s cut through the existential crap and talk about the real stuff. What is up with you and Manfriend????
January 11, 2010 at 1:39 pm
AnnaBeth
Perhaps, just perhaps, your writing was good because you were not concerned about what the coupling masses would say or think because they were already shunning you.
Perhaps when we are tortured and unhappy we write/create from our heart better because we are so self absorbed in misery that it doesn’t matter what others will say.
Perhaps we can be creative and loved. I site AS as a prime example.
January 11, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Marilyn
Some philosopher or writer, I think Russian (how’s that for a vague memory?) once wrote something about human creativity–he whimsically said that animals express themselves with their tails, and that humans, sensing their own primal absence of tail, create music, art, and literature to express what animals express with their tails. People create not only to express beauty, but to find the balance a tail would provide. I think this is a charming idea.
For me, I’m not terribly creative when I’m stabilized and auto-balanced by medication, though that sometimes turns out to be a necessary trade-off for me. I do my best creative work when I’m more bi-polar, which might mean I’m either ecstatic or desolate–those are the times I feel the need to create something in order to find my emotional balance. To flourish my tail.
January 11, 2010 at 2:45 pm
LindseyC
Artemisia Gentileschi was raped by a painting tutor her father had to hire because she barred from an all-male art school. She was sued and tortured for bringing up allegations about it. She later married a fellow artist, enjoyed great professional success, and yes, became a mother.
Grievous times compel introspection, since solace comes from no where else. Thus one reaches deeper, remembers more, and works harder… or in some cases, crashes and burns. And life goes on. Either way, there is always a Savior standing nearby to lift us up!!
Sarah, you go on enjoying fabulous manfriend. I love that he stood up for Eve and other good women in Sunday School yesterday. We’ll deal with your writing absence somehow… hopefully by becoming greater writers 🙂
January 11, 2010 at 2:46 pm
drfindley
In further thinking, Radiohead’s In Rainbows was yet another brilliant album produced at a time when the whole band was pretty happy with themselves. I think the real key to producing great work is to be driven. Too often artists get happy and complacent. Thankfully it’s right about the same time they sell out.
A couple of examples:
“I drew in a manic, sweat-flinging state of deadline panic EVERY week. Not most weeks. EVERY week”
http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n12/htdocs/berkeley-breathed-273.php
January 11, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Nel
Phew! Sarah, I honestly thought, up till your final statement, that you were alluding to a break-up with Manfriend. I was beginning to feel very sad for you!
I find that when I am a bit blue, I innately tend to be more contemplative. I tend to slow down a bit and seek cathartic outlets. I think each of these can be very conducive to creativity. When I am feeling happy, I can still do each of these things, only it is a more concerted act than something that just happens.
January 11, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Michaela
Hemingway said something to that effect… “you have to be hungry to write”… In “A Movable Feast”
I’m not convinced. Maybe it’s just an excuse… the writers’ livelihoods create “hungry” lifestyles, and, well, they do what they can to take pride in it, to convince themselves it is worth it. Maybe?
Maybe a slight hunger is simply good motivation. But I don’t think you can be fully impoverished in any sphere and still write. Writing requires hope.
January 11, 2010 at 3:05 pm
bfwebster
There are only two times in my life when I have written poetry. The first was during my mission (and for a short period afterwards, once back at college); the second was when I was going through a divorce and eventual re-marriage.
The only real exception was a poem I wrote two years after my (current) wife and I were sealed, which was a bit over four years after we were married. That was nearly 20 years ago. It’s still (I think) the best poem I ever wrote, but haven’t written a lick of poetry since. ..bruce..
January 11, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Brohammas
I don’t buy it. I say all this lack of creativity is more a function of time and energy than depression.
As a single guy I didn’t do a dang thing creative, I was too busy trying to become un-single. Once that happened I found myself with all this free time and mind space, ready for creative creation.
When I had kids I found myself changing diapers and preventing catastophy more, painting and writing less… till I got the hang of the kids (aka discovered digital babysitting).
I say if you are in a good place socially, your energy is simply diverted as opposed to non existant. If it is the quality you feel suffering during the good times, change the subject matter to something you feel more strongly about.
I am confident my advice is sage as I am accomplished only in concept… I’m off to take a nap on my non existant laurels.
January 11, 2010 at 4:03 pm
kt
I think that it is not sadness, loneliness, depression that inspires so much as a yearning or thirst – which is often coupled with those emotions, as it implies a lack of something.
But I think one can be happy and thirsty. Perhaps?
January 11, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Jason M
What about Shakespeare? He seems to have led a pretty varied life, and not always lonely.
I get caught trying to write how I feel. It brings me sinking into paralysis. It’s much easier to just turn on a recording device of some sort and cry it all out (so I can pee less, as Carrie Fisher’s grandma used to say). Or if I type it, I actually have to speak out loud and say what it is I’m experiencing. My actual, spoken voice, is a much better conduit than my fingers.
I have noticed a relationship dynamic that is electricity for me. I’m trying to write it now, which is deliciously painful. I seem always to be terrified – terrified going into the writing. I’m getting better at knowing the terror will not kill me. Only I will kill me. Or something else, eventually.
January 11, 2010 at 9:30 pm
sar
The only way to fix this is to break up or get engaged, both are pretty miserable.
January 11, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Tiffany Gee Lewis
This is one of the best things I’ve seen/heard on creativity and the troubled artist:
Sarah, so glad your post did not end up in a breakup. But you strung us along pretty well!
January 11, 2010 at 10:04 pm
nakiru
This reminds me of one more thing. My brother-in-law, over Christmas, told my sister that he was a little in awe of my knitting talent, since I could knit so many things and “manage to date someone at the same time.” 🙂 (This is also my happy news, my current reason for not writing much, and my joy.)
January 11, 2010 at 10:23 pm
Adam Findley
Another case in point: California cheese. While California cows are happy cows, California cheese leaves much to be desired. Just saying.
January 11, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Miggy
Sarah–That quote about happy and un-happy families… I guess it sort of works, but it’s pretty much the paradox of how the gospel make sense to me.
CS Lewis said something to the effect that there is a sort of mundane repetition to sin. And while goodness exists for it’s own sake all sin is basically twisted goodness. Sin cannot exist on it’s own–you just take something good and twist it, and you get sin. In relation to art–well as a painter my college professor was always reminding us there is “infinite variety.” Thus when we could pinpoint what was wrong with a piece of work it was easy to pick out the problem, but there were endless ways in which it could be made ‘right.’
Additionally, I also believe that most great art {not art that is considered important from an art history perspective or socially important, like say Van Gogh} is created after the same order in which God creates. Not to say that genuine life experiences like sadness, pain and loneliness can’t be a catalyst to art–especially when speaking directly to those experiences–but I also believe it’s a myth that it’s a MUST for greatness.
{Another artist myth while we’re at it? All the best painters from my program were not the dramatic, free-spirited, crazy dressed people who had an obvious ‘flair’ to their outer exterior. They usually dressed very plain and would not by any outward appearances be someone you could point out as ‘artistic.’ It seemed that the more comfortable they were in their work and it’s relevance, the less they needed to proclaim “I’m an artist!” in their personal appearance. Again, I don’t think this is always the case, but it seemed to be something I noticed.}
January 11, 2010 at 11:22 pm
sarahlolson
I am sorry if I led you to think Manfriend and I had broken up! That, team, was not intended. I have no desire to pretend anything like that. Even the pretending makes me sad. (Though I do want to acknowledge that we did break up for a couple of hours on New Year’s Eve when he found out I had not yet seen The Karate Kid. “I cannot date you until you’ve seen The Karate Kid,” he said. I considered heading to another party. Fortunately my roommates, who had taken off for a Red Box run, soon returned to save our relationship–the Red Box HAD THE KARATE KID. How weird is that? So we watched it New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day early am, and we were dating again. Phew. Relief abounded.)
I think I’ve come out of today’s discussion with a renewed commitment to being productive/generative even (maybe especially?) in times of happiness, evidence be darned. I can’t use my happiness as an excuse not to do the hard work of using my talents. That sounds like a stupid way to live a life. And the alternative sounds more fun and right.
To good writing and to happiness. Both. For all.
January 12, 2010 at 11:15 am
gamma
I read somewhere–and I am old enough for that somewhere to out-vague Marilyn–that highly inventive/creative businessmen (yes, men–that’s how long-ago vague this is) had, in their childhood or teens, a period during which they spent many hours alone with their thoughts, and thus became acquainted with them. This period of self-discovery taught them to think independently.
Since I believe that creativity is not limited to the arts, I suspect there is a connection here. Perhaps we are more in touch with our thoughts and hearts when there is no one around to run interference. And perhaps the circumstances that forced these young men to be isolated–one lived out of the reach of normal social interaction, one was bedridden by an extended period of illness–added a deep frisson of emotion that spurred their creativity. Or not, so their creativity was not channeled into emotional contexts, but into objective pursuits such as science and business.
I present no conclusions, just food for thought.
Personally, angst doesn’t tie into my creative process, such as it is. I require a deadline to be productive.
January 12, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Zina
Tiffany, is the Elizabeth Gilbert link supposed to bring up a video? It didn’t work for me. (I do see that there’s a transcript but I’m not patient to read a transcript in a very narrow scrolling column when I could watch it as a video.)
After reading the other comments I have another take on this question. Let’s say that to be creative, a person has to have two things: something to say, and motivation/determination/drive to actually say it. If (as the scriptures say) we have to know what sorrow feels like to recognize and appreciate its opposite, then we have to have experienced sorrow in some form for us to have anything to say about sorrow OR joy. Everyone has experienced or will experience (I believe) some sorrow in life, so that’s an easy prerequisite. But at times when joy predominates, we might not have any incentive to communicate about whatever sorrow we might have experienced. To give a specific example of this, I once read that J.K. Rowling never talked about her books while she was writing them except in the very vaguest of terms, even to those closest to her, because she felt that talking about them would dissipate her energy to *write* them. (We’ll leave the question of whether or not the Harry Potter books are great art for another day–but personally I do think they do address some pretty good universal questions, whether or not they do it with maximum skill.) It may have been in the same place that I read Rowling or someone else saying how all the people standing around at cocktail parties describing the books they plan to write are far from likely to actually get them written.
Also, I don’t think that severe depression nor extreme mania are conducive to creative productivity since severe depression can be so debilitating as to keep a person from even the level of activity required to get words on paper (or paint on canvas, etc.) and on the other hand an extremely manic person might *feel* extremely creative but lack the tethering necessary to actually produce or complete anything intelligible. True mental illness can simply be too debilitating for productivity, so the myth of the artist as being someone on the edge can push them right up to the drop off the cliff but can’t actually have them falling off of it.
As I’ve been thinking about this I’ve decided that I think joy can definitely be a fabulous impetus to creativity, but that if the cause of our joy involves having good immediate relationships in which to express ourselves, we’re less likely to feel a need to reach out on a larger scale. But I also like to think that with continued happiness, our souls might expand to where we have the desire to express ourselves beyond our small radius of relationships and share our sorrow-seasoned joys with a larger audience.
January 12, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Sharon
Not too much of a comment here, but this post made me think of the sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins, “No worst there is none,” particularly the ending sestet:
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
Thanks for the post.
January 12, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Sarah R.
Melissa-your comment about being delusional was hysterical. And spot on.
January 12, 2010 at 3:50 pm
re
While so many works have come out of depression and despair, think also of the number that have come out of love and joy. I think it is not the nature but the depth our emotion that moves us; it is the staleness of unfeeling that leaves us uninspired. Poignancy (if that’s a word) is the great muse; it reminds us that (and why) we’re alive.
January 12, 2010 at 4:36 pm
smylies
Sarah, do you think there’s any gospel sense or truth in the idea that sadness breeds higher creativity? Seriously, do you think that? Sorry I’m late to the discussion. Twas a good one.
January 12, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Shara
I really loved Amanda’s comment, that we “give up” a lot of things for happiness. What a great perspective. It’s so true. I would add one thought to that and say we give up a lot of things for those we love (i.e. giving up a second income to raise your kids), it’s learning to recognize what we are giving up and being ok with that and we’ll find happiness.
January 12, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Anna L.
Sarah, this is my new favorite post of yours. Lucky for me, I know exactly what you mean; I have never been so happy in my life, and I have never had so little desire to write.
I think part of it is (at least for me) that happiness is being around people who understand me better than I can express myself. I tell my husband we need to buy diapers and he knows I really mean “I love you so much that sometimes my teeth hurt.” I don’t have to struggle to convey the most important things in my life anymore. I can do that by just making a face, or throwing some ground turkey at my husband’s head. Why write a poem or an essay when ground turkey is so cheap?
I hope you stay this happy. I love that your romantic life spills all over this blog.
January 13, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Josephbrother
Does sorrow and despair lead us to be more childlike somehow? I want that to be the answer: childlikeness. When I’m sad I pick up language ad erstus (I made this latinate-german expression up – it means as at a beginning). Actually, I make up language all the time and I would call myself deeply feeling. But, maybe we could finesse our society into being childlike when we’re happy too. People do that, right? They stand on their heads and feel their insides drip. They sing high Bs around the house in their sweatpants (a la my father). If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands?
What I think is ironic about this blog, Sarah, and this blog, everybody, is that we are doing just what we are wondering if people do – we are writing about what is going on, eg Sarah is happy, Sarah does know what to write about except to write about not knowing what to write about. It makes perfect sense. We write about what we don’t know what to write about! Get it?
January 13, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Josephbrother
And I love the ground turkey throwing. Exactly. Stick to ground turkey.
😉
January 14, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Rachel
Seconded.
January 14, 2010 at 7:43 pm
stace
Oh, how I hate coming to your posts late. Everything I say feels like a deeply buried footnote. Not that it’s much more important than that (and no, I’ve never developed the so-called academic skill of devouring footnotes).
Loneliness and discontentment turn me inward. I don’t know that I write better when I’m unhappy, but I certainly write more. My mission journal reads like a Russian stage play. Of course, of course, it was one of the most joyfully soul-expanding experiences of my young life–but I generally felt to write when I was bummed.
When I’m happy, it’s typically because I’m busy–I have goals to accomplish and people’s hearts over whom I’m an active steward. Or just lots of pleasant distractions. I’m turned outward. I narrate my own experience less because I’ve forgotten the sometimes consuming idea that I’m a “self.”
However, it happens occasionally that I’m both contented and alone, AND have a bit of free time. When I make the effort to turn back inward (I’m not talking about a selfish/selfless binary here–I think both of these modes can be healthy and productive), I can still reach that well of creativity. It takes more from me. It doesn’t overflow like dark, rich melancholia. It taps my imagination more than my emotions. But it’s good stuff.
January 14, 2010 at 7:57 pm
stace
Also (see, now you got something started in my head) I think writers write to fulfill needs. There is definitely one category of my writing that fulfills a very stormy, yearn-y emotional need. It flourished when I was single and desperately lonely. That void in my life, however, has been filled. You wrote about hunger before. I’m not hungry in that way anymore. Fortunately, there are lots more needs–I’m full of dessert, but ALWAYS hungry for french fries!–and lots more reasons to write.
January 15, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Nancy
Herman Hesse’s “Rosshalde”
“If I had to tell you why I’m a painter and why I spread paint on canvas, I should say: I paint because I have no tail to wag.”
January 17, 2010 at 1:15 am
Jerry Ted
I write the best music when I am depressed and despondent. The problem is that this kind of music is usually kind of melancholy, which, as all melancholy music has a unique knack to do, makes me more melancholy. I haven’t figured out away around that yet.
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