Pictures are easy...words are hard

I find myself at a loss for words...which is odd, being one of my hobbies in the past was writng short stories. 

I started writing in 8th grade (yea, Junior High) - just little snippets, a little situational story here and there, as I worked my way through growing up.  If a particularly stressful incident occured (and who doesn't have the whole growing pains thing when growing up?) a short story would emerge from my psyche and I'd go through the whole pen to paper routine.

I'd usually feel better after putting my hero/heroine through her paces.  Sometimes, the stories would have NOTHING to do with my situation, but just the act of writing would be enough to work through whatever was banging around in my brain.

I've since moved on to other forms of expression to work through life stresses.  Don't get me wrong, I still write plenty - on Facebook, on blogs, on 'net forums...but the last creative eruption that involved more words than a sarcastic one-liner happened to me around 4 years ago.

Hmmm - it was not long after that last emergence that I finally figured out I had a good photographic eye.

Personally, I've known for a long time that words are my way of processing pain.  If I'm feeling strung out, depressed, or intently emotional, I start pouring out words.  Granted, I've upgraded from the pen & paper routine (keyboards and documentation software are wonderful things), but the impetus is the same - be all beat up inside, and out come the words. 

My blackest periods ALWAYS involve really bad poetry...I'll accept thanks now that I'm NOT sharing...

I guess this means that I'm well-adjusted now, (but not normal...I'll NEVER be normal), because words are hard...

I'm not alone - Many people throughout history have processed their pain through creative expression.  


Van Gogh suffered from seizures and is now thought to have been bipolar - he would jump between furious periods of frenzied work to exhaustion and black depression.  He also was an avid user of absinthe and vodka, which probably exacerbated his condition.  He ended his life early with a self-inflicted gunshot (although the gun was never found) and he is most famous for cutting off his own ear for a love-interest. 



Tchaikovsky was a homosexual man in a time and place where such 'unnatural' appetites were answered with imprisonment, scorn, torture, and death.  He married to keep the fiction of a normal life intact, which lead to some wonderful works as he processed the pain of a loveless marriage.



Edvard Munch once wrote:

"My afflictions belong to me and my art-‑they have become one with me. Without illness and anxiety, I would have been a rudderless ship."

"My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness," he once wrote. "Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder....My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art."


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"My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness," he once wrote. "Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder....My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art."


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/edvard-munch-beyond-the-scream-111810150/#oHv301871BleOKzy.99
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"My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness," he once wrote. "Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder....My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art."


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/edvard-munch-beyond-the-scream-111810150/#oHv301871BleOKzy.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

He suffered from panic attacks, depression, various phobias, insomnia, and paranoia.  He spent the last 35 years of his life in almost total isolation.  His painting 'The Scream' is his most iconic image.



And Beethoven - who I couldn't resist adding that sneaky little teacup to...Beethoven has been described as 'a passionate man who carried his feelings on his sleeve.'  He is thought to have suffered from manic/depression, showing periods of depression accompanied by suicidal thoughts and periods of elation with scores of ideas.  He was also very intolerant of others, often coming to blows with them or throwing things at servants.

Beethoven has been praised as one of the greatest composers in history, and I agree.  He had a way with music, a way to infuse it with emotional content, that you just don't see in the bits of musical 'product' that are played on the radio today.  

My favorite piece?  It has to be "Quasi una fantasia"(almost a fantasy - Italian) - better known as the Moonlight Sonata.  He composed this piece in 1801 and dedicated it to one of his pupils.  It is rumored that after the dedication, he offered a proposal, but her parents forbid the match.

Guess the old chap will have to make due with a nice cup of tea?