Life, As I See It

Today I had a conversation with a life-long friend and, as fate would have it, current co-worker.  She tells me she has been reading my blog, and can feel my angst.  She says, Kina, I want you to know, no one should have that much angst in their life.

I’d been thinking about that recently anyway, to be honest.  Specifically, I’ve wondered what the readers of my blog must think about my life, seeing it only through the lens of these articles I’ve written.   So I feel I must let you know, dear reader, that my life is not 100% filled to the brim with angst and grief.

When I was in high school, my creative writing teacher wrote across one of my submissions that she had never seen me submit “a happy poem.”  I did try to write one; it got a lower grade than my other submissions.  I never could quite get the hang of it. 

I am thinking, if one is an artist, the very thing that sparks creativity is emotion, feeling.  For me, angst, depression, hurt tend to generate a creative spark in  me, and I feel compelled to let that spark become a piece of work.  In the process, a cathartic process I should add, I become cleansed, clear-headed, calmer.  I have taken something bothersome, something stuck in the wheel of my mind, and poured it out of me and onto paper (so to speak).

Usually, what gets stuck in the wheel of my mind happens to be the sadder, more angst-ridden experiences.  Be assured, I don’t take happiness or happy things for granted.  It’s just that the happier, brighter, less angst-ridden things I can experience in the “now” and do not have to work them around in my head trying to sort it all out.  There are wondrous, amazing things around every corner; and I am quite in awe of it all.  But it doesn’t compel me to write.

There are books and books on creativity: what is creativity; how does one keep motivated to be creative; what is the difference between male and female creative process.  Some are great reading and inspirational in general; some read like a dissertation being read aloud to a room of deaf mutes.   But I wholly believe the whole point of creating is creating.  I don’t think it is a science to be picked apart and dissected; every little process analyzed; every step of the way, charted, mapped.  When, if, creativity can be reduced to a scientific formulae, then creativity will loose its magic, loose its ability to inspire; it will cease to be awe-filled and wondrous.  Creativity will be nothing more than a scientific walk through a paint-by-number set.   And I do not want to be a paint-by-number writer.

What I have created here, this blog, this series of articles about a relationship’s demise and a few articles about online dating – what I have created here is only one piece of my whole creation.  This wondrous magical incomprehensible thing living inside me that causes me to write, this need to transfer angst and hurt into some thing, that creative outlet is only one part of who I am. 

I have created other things, for different reasons: I have created work, beading, drawing, music; I have created a home, a small garden, a need to read; I have created loving relationships; I have created my life.  And here, at this blog, this is where I transfer my pain, anger, hurt, and angst from a burning itch inside my soul into a piece of art, something created; something I created.

My life, expressed, at its saddest, darkest, most painful existence becomes something a little more beautiful because it is has become art.  My hope is that it resonates with other people who have felt similar things; my hope is that I can somehow accurately and acutely put into words what others feel they cannot.

While my friend who commented on my blog actually happens to know the history of my life, I will give her a little bit of leeway.  But in general, my life is not angst-filled or miserable.  There are sad moments, dark moments, in the life of everyone.  It is a universal experience.  But hopefully, for most, those moments will heal and eventually fade away a bit.  And the same is true for me.  But while those moments are biting and chewing into my heart, I will express them as best as I can, before they fade and I cannot find anything poetic or worth writing about in them anymore.

Angst inspires me.  Hurt,broken-heartedness, loss, contemplation of the sadder things in life inspire me.  And I write.

So, reader, I hope you can now see, my whole existence is not as depressing as it would seem.  You are only able to know me through what I have written; and once again, what i have written was most likely inspired by hurt, pain, broken-heartedness and the sadder things in life.

So, the “happy poem” my high school teacher sought simply is not in me.  It doesn’t mean there is no happiness in my life.  And by way of earning a lower grade on my one “happy” submission in high school, it should be obvious I cannot take something happy, good, bright, beautiful, wondrous and miraculous and translate it into any thing more beautiful that what it already is.