Random
This is a mess
Ever feel like this?
Like most writers, I have this knack for suffering, for being a complete mess. Maybe this is disclosing too much about myself, but I’ve had this conception that to be a writer—an artist—means that I have to suffer, that happiness somehow inauthenticates my “work.” Even though I know this is a myth, I fall for it every time. I’m a fool like that.
In grad school, I took this class with a Chinese dissident poet who told me that (1) my life is too easy, good poetry comes from suffering; (2) I need to drink more (to which I responded that I’m allergic to alcohol, to which he responded by asking me, in class, if I smoke weed); and (3) there are people who write poetry and people who don’t. I am in the latter category. To this day, I refuse to say I write poetry, probably because of him.
But this myth of suffering, it seems to be everywhere. Being a writer, to so many people, means depression, alcoholism, martyring self for the sake of art. And I want to call bullshit on all of it. It’s self-aggrandizing, self-romanticizing crap, but again, I fall for it every time.
In conversations I have with other writers, we rarely talk about our happiness. Instead, we discuss how hard things are. Almost universally. And in the rare instances when things are going well, it’s described more as contentment, which in many ways is even worse than depression, at least to me.
But back to the myth of suffering that we all, in one way or another, help propagate. Here’s a list of the top ten drunk American writers. I take issue with the list, but the fact that a list like this exists is a problem. Here’s a Wikipedia page about writers who have committed suicide. Here’s a ridiculous article on writers and mental illness, fully equipped with star rating system (unrelated to their mental illness, I hope). Here’s yet another page about more writers and mental illness. My point is, whether we’re romanticizing Modernist “gods” like Joyce or Hemingway, talking about ourselves, or even surfing the web, we’re taught that writers and artists are mentally unstable, or at the very minimum drunks. I refuse to believe this is true. And I certainly don’t want to be like David Hasselhoff, though this is the funniest (and saddest) video I’ve seen in a while.
I mean: Ok people, happy up. It’s sunny outside, and up here in Canada, it’s Victoria Day, a day of celebration for the great queen who gave rise to prostitution by making sure everyone was sexually repressed! Hooray! Mostly, I think it’s just an excuse for people to get ridiculously trashed. By the end of the day, I fully expect to see at least ten people slurring, “This is a mess.”
Also, thank you, Jeff, for inspiring this.
I don’t think you can say there isn’t a great deal of artists/writers whatever who don’t suffer some kind of mental illness and aren’t a mess. Thing is, there is a whole bunch of PEOPLE who suffer mental illness and are a mess and the artists and writers are a subset of that larger group of people. I think a reason people tend to think its all or just or automatically the artists and writers is that artists and writers do a thing where they have the oppurtunity to say
HERE: look at this thing, it involves my suffering.
Most people do not do that with their problems, at least not on a public scale that art does.
Also, I have a big problem with other artists/writers seeming to think that other artists/writers are NOT artists and writers unless they “Suffer.” One, everybody’s suffering somehow. Two, those things are not exclusive. Great art can come out of suffering, great art can come outta lots of shit. Ugh.
Joseph, By all means, I’m not saying that writers/artists don’t suffer, or all people don’t suffer. Nor am I arguing that anyone’s suffering is illegitimate. I simply wanted to point out the mythology surrounding suffering and the creation of art. I’m not trying to make light of real pain, by any means. Sorry if it came across that way.
The myth of the necessity of suffering bums me out. If a really bright, creative, cleverly expressive kid wants to be an artist, is she supposed to become an accountant because she doesn’t come from an abusive home?
David Lynch has an interesting take on the myth of the suffering artist (i.e. suffering makes better art) in the documentary Lynch. It’s a fascinating look at a man who has practiced transcendental meditation every day for 30 years and is a creative force as well as an artist who is obviously not afraid to access his demons.
Thanks for this, Lily. I think that suffering is real, but not necessarily vital to “art.” The cult of personality, the disposition of the writer, can often be more interesting than the work–when this happens, we become less invested in art, and more titillated by gossip.
I’m bored by any writer who would wave her banner of suffering in order to amplify her work.
But suffering within a work–a work made fleshy that quivers with suffering–that’s different than what you’re saying here, no? My personal darkness doesn’t have to shadow my work, if I don’t want it to. In fact, the tension of *my* climate against that of whatever I’m working on–that’s generative, for me. And it’s when I feel “happy” that I feel more capable, more in control, of gloomier material. Maybe? Yes, I think.
Suffering can be what has to happen to make the act of creation all that much more singular. But while there’s literally no pride in being the suffering-est sufferer that ever suffered some suffer, there certainly is a lot in those who can make it ford through to the other side with a clear head, objectives, ambition and little bit of good luck and good weather intact.
You’re quickly becoming my favorite writer on this site, Lily; illegitimis non carborundum.
I do this too, but at the same time I’m so unhappy when I don’t write that it creates a sort of binary — I must be happy when I write if I hate not writing so much, seems to be the reasoning.
Thanks, Lily. David Lehman wrote a lovely, short post on the BAP blog about something similar–that not only is suicide not romantic, but also that educators have a responsibility to teach young poets this lesson:
http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/04/is-suicide-contagious.html
Though it’s true that many writers were/are depressed and/or alcoholics, I think their best work is actually in spite of their illness–that the times when they drank the most or hurt the most were their least productive periods.
I’ve never been able to do anything creative while in a state of intense suffering. I have to be healthy for the words to start flowing. . .
ive found ismilar. like, maybe some of my better stuff is a refleciton on the suffering? not to say there isnt suffeing during thewrinting of it, but that ittends to happen, the writing, afterwards. after ap eriod of time.
Thanks for bringing this up, Lily. I agree with Joseph–I think the “suffering writer” conceit is so prominent because writers often have their problems on display in their published work. A mentally unstable non-writer doesn’t have their pain on a platter, so to speak. It also doesn’t help that we (we=the general public) take pleasure in the macabre and especially macabre personae.
Personally, if I’m depressed I can’t write, which makes me even more depressed. Nice cycle.
I do think the myth of the suffering writer is becoming less pervasive. Increasingly, I see writers who seem functional and not interested in abusing substances to fuel their creative muse or otherwise engaging the myth of the suffering writer. Writing is a really happy thing for me. It’s what I do to get away from my messy bullshit. This is not to say I don’t have some fucked up shit going on but I don’t revel in it. The further away I get from that, the stronger my writing becomes. As others in this thread have said, I have a really difficult time writing while suffering.
also, im drunk
haha, just kidding, future employers! lol!
This is true. William Vollmann is kind of my example for this. He doesn’t jack around w/ all the romantic suffering-artist shit, he just does his work.
ah nah, Lily, I didn’t get that from your post. I was just commenting upon the general sense of the link between artist/suffering that I get from people in general.
yes yes yes
My husband and I have this pretend theory, that Vollmann has to be two people–maybe identical twins, like in Priest’s The Prestige. How anyone can travel and research and write so goddamn much good stuff is absolutely beyond my ability to comprehend. He takes productive up a couple of octaves and then some.
No kidding! It’s insane. Either he reads and writes at warp speed, or he can be two places at once. . . there’s no way around it.
Also, thank you, Jeff, for inspiring this.
I’m mentally unstable (diagnosed, not just wishful thinking – and it isn’t fun so fuck off posers) and I am a poet/writer and painter. I have never been sure that they are related but if I had to choose I would rather be a poet then happy, right than happy et cetera,
Lily, it isn’t a myth though and there are numerous studies to say it isn’t a myth and none that I know of to say it is. a full on 90 percent of writers/poets have a diagnosable mental illness and are at a greater risk of attempted suicide as well. I cite the study done by Professor Arnold Ludwig, M.D. of the university of Kentucky in his study entitled ‘method and madness in the arts and sciences’.
I bet a lot of this comes out of the reality that artists tend to create as a means of understanding themselves and the world. If you don’t have anything you feel the *need* to dig deeply into and come to terms with, then you probably have little reason to create. Powerful artists don’t say, “It’s a beautiful day! I think I’ll be ex-pressssssive.” Nope. If it’s a beautiful day, they enjoy it (if they can) like anyone else. But if they’ve got some stuff to work out, they often work through it via their art, no?
For me, the act of creation is investigation, exploration… and this is often about working through “issues” (aka “suffering”) if not from the chaos w/in then from the chaos without (everything I see and feel in the world around me). Either way, this is a channeling process and it takes its toll on the body, spirit and emotions. Artists/writers/etc. who are (in)famous drunks or addicts or assholes are likely this way b/c they don’t (or don’t know how to) take care of themselves, which is no different from so many other people struggling through the day-to-day.
I say: guard your houses, people. The world is a beautiful place.
Yes.
yeah, there’s little clarity in the act of suffering, I think, but revisiting the suffering to come to terms with it at a later time is essential on a basic human level and I think this also makes art that is deeply felt.
I don’t think you can say there isn’t a great deal of artists/writers whatever who don’t suffer some kind of mental illness and aren’t a mess. Thing is, there is a whole bunch of PEOPLE who suffer mental illness and are a mess and the artists and writers are a subset of that larger group of people. I think a reason people tend to think its all or just or automatically the artists and writers is that artists and writers do a thing where they have the oppurtunity to say
HERE: look at this thing, it involves my suffering.
Most people do not do that with their problems, at least not on a public scale that art does.
Also, I have a big problem with other artists/writers seeming to think that other artists/writers are NOT artists and writers unless they “Suffer.” One, everybody’s suffering somehow. Two, those things are not exclusive. Great art can come out of suffering, great art can come outta lots of shit. Ugh.
Thanks! Kind words!
Joseph, By all means, I’m not saying that writers/artists don’t suffer, or all people don’t suffer. Nor am I arguing that anyone’s suffering is illegitimate. I simply wanted to point out the mythology surrounding suffering and the creation of art. I’m not trying to make light of real pain, by any means. Sorry if it came across that way.
The myth of the necessity of suffering bums me out. If a really bright, creative, cleverly expressive kid wants to be an artist, is she supposed to become an accountant because she doesn’t come from an abusive home?
David Lynch has an interesting take on the myth of the suffering artist (i.e. suffering makes better art) in the documentary Lynch. It’s a fascinating look at a man who has practiced transcendental meditation every day for 30 years and is a creative force as well as an artist who is obviously not afraid to access his demons.
Thanks for this, Lily. I think that suffering is real, but not necessarily vital to “art.” The cult of personality, the disposition of the writer, can often be more interesting than the work–when this happens, we become less invested in art, and more titillated by gossip.
I’m bored by any writer who would wave her banner of suffering in order to amplify her work.
But suffering within a work–a work made fleshy that quivers with suffering–that’s different than what you’re saying here, no? My personal darkness doesn’t have to shadow my work, if I don’t want it to. In fact, the tension of *my* climate against that of whatever I’m working on–that’s generative, for me. And it’s when I feel “happy” that I feel more capable, more in control, of gloomier material. Maybe? Yes, I think.
sounds like writing as means of survival. 90%? wow.
Thanks for posting this Lily. This is pretty much what jesus said up at the top of the thread but:
I agree that it’s important to remain positive. I have a hard time doing this and I suspect it’s for the same reasons other writers and artists do: I have a hard time lying to myself. I look at myself and the world with as much scrutiny as I can muster, reasoning that art and writing about being as honest as possible. I keep coming to the conclusions that I’m fucked up and that the world is just as, if not more, fucked up as I am. And that anyone who doesn’t realize this is delusional.
I see most people with a positive outlook on life as willfully ignorant, leading an unexamined life, unaware of their surroundings or they know the extent of the world’s fucked-ness and they just don’t care.
This isn’t a healthy state of mind to operate in. While it’s key to soldier on, to remember that the world is most definitely fucked up but you have to do your best with what you’ve got, some days it’s hard to remember that.
I have a major problem with writers promoting the use of alcohol and drugs. There’s a few mutants who can make drugs and booze work to balance their brains out, but for the rest of us, abusive amounts of mind altering chemicals are destructive forces. How can you justify that?
I do this too, but at the same time I’m so unhappy when I don’t write that it creates a sort of binary — I must be happy when I write if I hate not writing so much, seems to be the reasoning.
Thanks, Lily. David Lehman wrote a lovely, short post on the BAP blog about something similar–that not only is suicide not romantic, but also that educators have a responsibility to teach young poets this lesson:
http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/04/is-suicide-contagious.html
Though it’s true that many writers were/are depressed and/or alcoholics, I think their best work is actually in spite of their illness–that the times when they drank the most or hurt the most were their least productive periods.
I’ve never been able to do anything creative while in a state of intense suffering. I have to be healthy for the words to start flowing. . .
ive found ismilar. like, maybe some of my better stuff is a refleciton on the suffering? not to say there isnt suffeing during thewrinting of it, but that ittends to happen, the writing, afterwards. after ap eriod of time.
Thanks for bringing this up, Lily. I agree with Joseph–I think the “suffering writer” conceit is so prominent because writers often have their problems on display in their published work. A mentally unstable non-writer doesn’t have their pain on a platter, so to speak. It also doesn’t help that we (we=the general public) take pleasure in the macabre and especially macabre personae.
Personally, if I’m depressed I can’t write, which makes me even more depressed. Nice cycle.
I do think the myth of the suffering writer is becoming less pervasive. Increasingly, I see writers who seem functional and not interested in abusing substances to fuel their creative muse or otherwise engaging the myth of the suffering writer. Writing is a really happy thing for me. It’s what I do to get away from my messy bullshit. This is not to say I don’t have some fucked up shit going on but I don’t revel in it. The further away I get from that, the stronger my writing becomes. As others in this thread have said, I have a really difficult time writing while suffering.
also, im drunk
haha, just kidding, future employers! lol!
This is true. William Vollmann is kind of my example for this. He doesn’t jack around w/ all the romantic suffering-artist shit, he just does his work.
ah nah, Lily, I didn’t get that from your post. I was just commenting upon the general sense of the link between artist/suffering that I get from people in general.
yes yes yes
My husband and I have this pretend theory, that Vollmann has to be two people–maybe identical twins, like in Priest’s The Prestige. How anyone can travel and research and write so goddamn much good stuff is absolutely beyond my ability to comprehend. He takes productive up a couple of octaves and then some.
No kidding! It’s insane. Either he reads and writes at warp speed, or he can be two places at once. . . there’s no way around it.
I’m mentally unstable (diagnosed, not just wishful thinking – and it isn’t fun so fuck off posers) and I am a poet/writer and painter. I have never been sure that they are related but if I had to choose I would rather be a poet then happy, right than happy et cetera,
Lily, it isn’t a myth though and there are numerous studies to say it isn’t a myth and none that I know of to say it is. a full on 90 percent of writers/poets have a diagnosable mental illness and are at a greater risk of attempted suicide as well. I cite the study done by Professor Arnold Ludwig, M.D. of the university of Kentucky in his study entitled ‘method and madness in the arts and sciences’.
I bet a lot of this comes out of the reality that artists tend to create as a means of understanding themselves and the world. If you don’t have anything you feel the *need* to dig deeply into and come to terms with, then you probably have little reason to create. Powerful artists don’t say, “It’s a beautiful day! I think I’ll be ex-pressssssive.” Nope. If it’s a beautiful day, they enjoy it (if they can) like anyone else. But if they’ve got some stuff to work out, they often work through it via their art, no?
For me, the act of creation is investigation, exploration… and this is often about working through “issues” (aka “suffering”) if not from the chaos w/in then from the chaos without (everything I see and feel in the world around me). Either way, this is a channeling process and it takes its toll on the body, spirit and emotions. Artists/writers/etc. who are (in)famous drunks or addicts or assholes are likely this way b/c they don’t (or don’t know how to) take care of themselves, which is no different from so many other people struggling through the day-to-day.
I say: guard your houses, people. The world is a beautiful place.
Yes.
yeah, there’s little clarity in the act of suffering, I think, but revisiting the suffering to come to terms with it at a later time is essential on a basic human level and I think this also makes art that is deeply felt.
Thanks! Kind words!
sounds like writing as means of survival. 90%? wow.
Thanks for posting this Lily. This is pretty much what jesus said up at the top of the thread but:
I agree that it’s important to remain positive. I have a hard time doing this and I suspect it’s for the same reasons other writers and artists do: I have a hard time lying to myself. I look at myself and the world with as much scrutiny as I can muster, reasoning that art and writing about being as honest as possible. I keep coming to the conclusions that I’m fucked up and that the world is just as, if not more, fucked up as I am. And that anyone who doesn’t realize this is delusional.
I see most people with a positive outlook on life as willfully ignorant, leading an unexamined life, unaware of their surroundings or they know the extent of the world’s fucked-ness and they just don’t care.
This isn’t a healthy state of mind to operate in. While it’s key to soldier on, to remember that the world is most definitely fucked up but you have to do your best with what you’ve got, some days it’s hard to remember that.
I have a major problem with writers promoting the use of alcohol and drugs. There’s a few mutants who can make drugs and booze work to balance their brains out, but for the rest of us, abusive amounts of mind altering chemicals are destructive forces. How can you justify that?
Right now I’m reading O My Land, My Friends, the 500+ page selected letters of Hart Crane (I’m like 240 pages in) and so far I’m really amazed at how little he seems to dwell on how sad & alienating his life was. I mean, he worked in a fucking factory owned by his father in Akron or Cleveland, Ohio from 6 AM to 11 PM (!!!!!), had few personal friends and seemed to have very little of a social life for most of his early 20s.. yet he’s writing letters about the conquest and knowledge of visionary mental spaces, imposing a synthesis of a natural and spiritual body onto a nation, etc. Crane (at least in his letters) seems so level-headed and productive in spite of how depressing his life was.. and I love him for that and for everything else about him.. The Broken Tower by Paul Mariani is such a troubling, heartbreaking book.
Agreed, Chris. Abusive amounts = self-destruction. However, I’m a huge advocate of recreational amounts of whatever one enjoys (and can handle) to offset the crushing weight of sobriety.
Also, I think it’s important to keep in mind that the world has always been fucked up. It’s likely no more or no less fucked up now than ever before. We just have more access to information these days, so it may look uglier. A decent survey of history, though, provides a more accurate perspective.
Finally, I don’t believe positivity necessarily = apathy or cluelessness. Awareness, forgiveness, acceptance, effort when and where one sees fit, finding joy in being open, in exploration, working hard, connection and communication w/out prejudice, feeling what there is to feel w/out fear… these are the keys to happiness, in my experience — with eyes, heart and mind wide open… or so I remind myself on those days when I feel outta sorts, which is often little more than me being out of balance. Nothing the right amount of good food, drink, love and maybe a couple hours at the gym won’t cure.
Why must sobriety be crushing? I’ve had my experimenting w/ alcohol, stimulants, etc., but even in moderation I don’t feel like they’re as freeing as uninhibited sobriety. I feel like there’s more nourishment in even the tiniest of natural facts than there is in a drug. Each day I feel like I’m getting better at living how Emerson suggested, that we be “tipsy with water.”
Oh, and as a general trip, I don’t recommend trying salvia if you looking for stuff to chill out from our mental problems from. My experience on it was absolutely horrifying, and the other chronic depressive I know had an even worse experience. . .
I think it all stems from a fear of being one of the people who don’t bother to ask the questions that writer’s ask. Today I was ridiculed for describing the “non-commissioned officer walk” but being unable to do it. Part of my cognitive process as to writing is developing patterns and seeing the things that certain people have in common with each other. Anyway, I feel like everyone’s as emotional as everyone else, some people show and some don’t, some express it and some don’t. We’re of the DO DO DO school of thought, we express our feelings and observations, and this means we have to lead a certain kind of life: one in which we allow life to happen, not control it to the point that nothing interesting ever comes our way.
Something along these lines.
I think the whole “romantic writer” thing begins in childhood. I think the writer is the one who asks the big questions (on a relative scale) in fourth or fifth grade, while the other kids are still running around talking about kudies. I think maybe this is the only thing we all have in common. I’ve met writers with great social skills, writers with terrible social skills, writers who make me feel awkward just for existing, writers who make me feel at home on a street corner.
I prefer writers who’ve starved because we have that much in common. Not because I think we are some sort of heroes. We didn’t ask for our fucking circumstances coming up. Nobody did. Perhaps as long as we’re going to have the class system we should have walls up. Maybe it’s time you just let us proles go about our business. Not you, Lily. You, the wealthy kids. Because I don’t hate the wealthy kids. I know they’re as much a victim of all this as anyone else.
It took me five minutes to realize I had next to nothing in common with Jac Jemc. Just because we both like writing doesn’t mean a fucking thing. It takes more than all that.
*that writers ask
I am also a “depressive.” My experiences with hallucinogens have been pretty terrifying. I’m not going to do those anymore.
Drugs haven’t been very helpful for me qua “treating mental illness.” (Did I use “qua” right?) I am trying to be “straight edge” right now. It’s going okay. I want to be a monk or something. It seems like drugs are never as fun or good as I think they’re going to be, but it’s hard to remember what they’re actually like when you’re not doing them. I think I have problems with “moderation.” I feel like it has to be “all or nothing.” I think it’s probably best in terms of “mental health” and “productivity” if I don’t do drugs. Drugs have never helped me “get laid” either.
Oh and Jac Jemc is not a rich kid. We just didn’t have anything in common.
Right now I’m reading O My Land, My Friends, the 500+ page selected letters of Hart Crane (I’m like 240 pages in) and so far I’m really amazed at how little he seems to dwell on how sad & alienating his life was. I mean, he worked in a fucking factory owned by his father in Akron or Cleveland, Ohio from 6 AM to 11 PM (!!!!!), had few personal friends and seemed to have very little of a social life for most of his early 20s.. yet he’s writing letters about the conquest and knowledge of visionary mental spaces, imposing a synthesis of a natural and spiritual body onto a nation, etc. Crane (at least in his letters) seems so level-headed and productive in spite of how depressing his life was.. and I love him for that and for everything else about him.. The Broken Tower by Paul Mariani is such a troubling, heartbreaking book.
Agreed, Chris. Abusive amounts = self-destruction. However, I’m a huge advocate of recreational amounts of whatever one enjoys (and can handle) to offset the crushing weight of sobriety.
Also, I think it’s important to keep in mind that the world has always been fucked up. It’s likely no more or no less fucked up now than ever before. We just have more access to information these days, so it may look uglier. A decent survey of history, though, provides a more accurate perspective.
Finally, I don’t believe positivity necessarily = apathy or cluelessness. Awareness, forgiveness, acceptance, effort when and where one sees fit, finding joy in being open, in exploration, working hard, connection and communication w/out prejudice, feeling what there is to feel w/out fear… these are the keys to happiness, in my experience — with eyes, heart and mind wide open… or so I remind myself on those days when I feel outta sorts, which is often little more than me being out of balance. Nothing the right amount of good food, drink, love and maybe a couple hours at the gym won’t cure.
Why must sobriety be crushing? I’ve had my experimenting w/ alcohol, stimulants, etc., but even in moderation I don’t feel like they’re as freeing as uninhibited sobriety. I feel like there’s more nourishment in even the tiniest of natural facts than there is in a drug. Each day I feel like I’m getting better at living how Emerson suggested, that we be “tipsy with water.”
Oh, and as a general trip, I don’t recommend trying salvia if you looking for stuff to chill out from our mental problems from. My experience on it was absolutely horrifying, and the other chronic depressive I know had an even worse experience. . .
I think it all stems from a fear of being one of the people who don’t bother to ask the questions that writer’s ask. Today I was ridiculed for describing the “non-commissioned officer walk” but being unable to do it. Part of my cognitive process as to writing is developing patterns and seeing the things that certain people have in common with each other. Anyway, I feel like everyone’s as emotional as everyone else, some people show and some don’t, some express it and some don’t. We’re of the DO DO DO school of thought, we express our feelings and observations, and this means we have to lead a certain kind of life: one in which we allow life to happen, not control it to the point that nothing interesting ever comes our way.
Something along these lines.
I think the whole “romantic writer” thing begins in childhood. I think the writer is the one who asks the big questions (on a relative scale) in fourth or fifth grade, while the other kids are still running around talking about kudies. I think maybe this is the only thing we all have in common. I’ve met writers with great social skills, writers with terrible social skills, writers who make me feel awkward just for existing, writers who make me feel at home on a street corner.
I prefer writers who’ve starved because we have that much in common. Not because I think we are some sort of heroes. We didn’t ask for our fucking circumstances coming up. Nobody did. Perhaps as long as we’re going to have the class system we should have walls up. Maybe it’s time you just let us proles go about our business. Not you, Lily. You, the wealthy kids. Because I don’t hate the wealthy kids. I know they’re as much a victim of all this as anyone else.
It took me five minutes to realize I had next to nothing in common with Jac Jemc. Just because we both like writing doesn’t mean a fucking thing. It takes more than all that.
*that writers ask
I am also a “depressive.” My experiences with hallucinogens have been pretty terrifying. I’m not going to do those anymore.
Drugs haven’t been very helpful for me qua “treating mental illness.” (Did I use “qua” right?) I am trying to be “straight edge” right now. It’s going okay. I want to be a monk or something. It seems like drugs are never as fun or good as I think they’re going to be, but it’s hard to remember what they’re actually like when you’re not doing them. I think I have problems with “moderation.” I feel like it has to be “all or nothing.” I think it’s probably best in terms of “mental health” and “productivity” if I don’t do drugs. Drugs have never helped me “get laid” either.
Oh and Jac Jemc is not a rich kid. We just didn’t have anything in common.
Yes and yes. I write because of my condition. Writing is what keeps me alive. Not a myth, a fact
@demi- salvia, eh? a bold man, you are. I was piqued when I first read about that, but I haven’t done “serious” drugs for a long time. I learned a lot from my experiences — all in early high school, no less — especially mushrooms, but I don’t need that stuff anymore. I’ve long been opened up, so to speak, to alternate realities. for me, those doors never closed.
@marshall – monkdom is an admirable way to go. I’m an advocate of the sit ‘n’ breathe means to higher consciousness, which is about tuning in, not tuning out.
all that said, there’s little I like more than soaking in a steamy bath with an IPA after a good workout. it’s not about getting fucked up, doood…. just relaxing. I think about alcohol, etc. in moderate doses the same way I think about food or art: plenty to choose from, all mind/body-altering, context is key.
peaceful hedonism, my friends. indulge if you so desire, etc. and so on…
But didn’t Crane commit suicide? So… doesn’t it make sense to read his letters as an attempt to convince himself that he wasn’t as beaten down as he was?
I feel like we can read and write all day about transcendence, but what really counts is LIVING that way, not talking or writing about it. Clearly, he wasn’t able to bridge this gap.
i like the way you see things jesusangelgarcia
Yes and yes. I write because of my condition. Writing is what keeps me alive. Not a myth, a fact
@demi- salvia, eh? a bold man, you are. I was piqued when I first read about that, but I haven’t done “serious” drugs for a long time. I learned a lot from my experiences — all in early high school, no less — especially mushrooms, but I don’t need that stuff anymore. I’ve long been opened up, so to speak, to alternate realities. for me, those doors never closed.
@marshall – monkdom is an admirable way to go. I’m an advocate of the sit ‘n’ breathe means to higher consciousness, which is about tuning in, not tuning out.
all that said, there’s little I like more than soaking in a steamy bath with an IPA after a good workout. it’s not about getting fucked up, doood…. just relaxing. I think about alcohol, etc. in moderate doses the same way I think about food or art: plenty to choose from, all mind/body-altering, context is key.
peaceful hedonism, my friends. indulge if you so desire, etc. and so on…
But didn’t Crane commit suicide? So… doesn’t it make sense to read his letters as an attempt to convince himself that he wasn’t as beaten down as he was?
I feel like we can read and write all day about transcendence, but what really counts is LIVING that way, not talking or writing about it. Clearly, he wasn’t able to bridge this gap.
i like the way you see things jesusangelgarcia
Thanks, Mimi. I like the way you see things, too.
Thanks, Mimi. I like the way you see things, too.
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