Don’t Use Your Art To Deal With Your Real World Problems
“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.” — William Shakespeare
What does anger feel like?
Here’s how I tried to describe it when I first started writing this:
“My body trembled in that particular way it does when it can’t comprehend the emotion it’s feeling, even though in your mind you know it’s anger.”
This didn’t sit well with me. So I sat back and thought of other ways I’ve seen anger expressed in writing, like:
- My blood boiled
- My soul trembled
- It ate me from inside
But that’s not what I felt either.
My girlfriend and I got into a fight recently, and I was using it as the basis for a scene in a script I’m currently writing. When it came time to breathe life into the drama, I couldn’t do it.
I sat and stared at the screen like most writers do and felt the cortisol pulse into my brain as if it wanted to spurt out of my eyes like a fountain (which is where I imagine most writers take the idea of “blood boiling” from).
Revisiting the situation only reignited the anger I felt. What made it worse was the fight picked at one of my biggest insecurities (and even though I know she wouldn’t care, I am consciously choosing to omit the topic of the disagreement). So, in true writer fashion I decided to process through my “art,” but when I stared at the page, the words wouldn’t come. Not even the ADHD medication I’d taken would pull the scene out of me. I just sat in my anger once again, took it with me into other tasks, and found myself so wound up it was as if — after I’d already worked through the issue with my partner — we were once again engaged in the fight.
A common artist’s coping tactic is to use art to process life’s most tender moments. We’re told that the greatest works are mined from the rawest form of our emotions, and that to express those emotions through your chosen medium is beneficial, and even therapeutic.
But could this actually be hurting the person trying to cope and work through a painful moment?
The Problem With Using Your Art To Process
Using a creative outlet to deal with problems is incredibly soothing. Here’s a fantastical scenario I came up with for myself to paint the picture for you:
1. Some moment in your life disrupts your level of normal. In my case, that was a breakdown in a relationship.
2. You take to your canvass, and push through the feelings by putting them to work for you — you show those feelings who’s boss by using them to enrich yourself. For me, that was turning this breakdown into a memorable scene, in what I hoped would be a memorable script.
3. Bliss washes over you as you finish. You’ve come to the end and now you’re elated that, not only have you processed the uncomfortable feeling that catapulted you to the point where productivity (a fleeting state for so many people) took over, you now have a piece of work to show off. You’ve crystallized your weakness into a tangible form that you can hold in your hands and observe. This is where I hoped, and still do hope, to end up with my script.
4. The world accepts your art with open arms. You’re called a “Genius” by your peers. Your blood has stopped boiling and eating you from inside. You admire yourself. “Fuck you,” you say to the memory of the situation that helped birth your artistic genius, “I’ve made my mark — I’m somebody who does something and turns shit into gold.”
Why is this soothing?
Because it gives the false impression that a positive was born from the negative. What prevents the artist from falling victim to the same circumstances again? What prevents me and my insecurities from having the same flare up with my girlfriend in the future?
The problem with using art as a mechanism of release is that to use it in lieu of dealing with an issue isn’t noble, or smart, it’s just avoidance.
True therapeutic processing cannot come from me writing a scene in which the outcome steers in my favor; true therapeutic processing cannot come from me injecting what my mind perceives as “right and just” into the dramatic parts of my work. Even if the scene I write is impressive, and even if it adds more to the whole of the larger work, does it help my situation in reality? Does it help me? If I’ve created, but not adequately dealt with the issue the work itself deals with, have I actually improved my life?
Creativity for the sake of emotional release can rid one’s mind of the torture of the moment. But creativity for the emotional-self-plunder of one’s psyche to fulfill artistic grandiosity at the expense of avoiding our insecurities? This is emotional avoidance that compounds on itself, with interest.
Platitude Or Truth?
“What the fuck does ‘lean in’ even mean?” I said.
I was sitting upright on my therapist’s couch a few years ago when I snarkily said this to her. There were tears but I can’t remember why, and I bent forward as if to lean in, physically. It was a joke, but she didn’t laugh.
She had just suggested that I lean into my feelings instead of trying to make them go away. The idea of “leaning in” was made popular by Brene Brown, the researcher turned speaker, and while it wasn’t bad advice, my mind immediately logged it as a platitude often parroted in the world of pop-psychology.
If I hadn’t been so broken at that moment, I might have questioned her in a less combative tone, even though my question would have remained the same: What does it mean to lean in?
“There are many ways to do that,” she said, and proceeded to tell me I could write or talk about the way I felt, or even study where I physically felt the emotions in my body, etc.
However, my therapist knew me well enough to know that even though I required a logical breakdown of what ambiguous terms like “lean in” meant, that she would have to be straight with me, even if I was sitting there emotionally naked.
“In other words, Michael, you deal with it,” she said.
You deal with it. Lean in was just a softer way of saying you address it; you face it head on (“It” being the resulting traumatic recall that presented itself when your “blood boiled” or you “felt your soul shiver”). Leaning into that feeling means to not avoid it.
Sounds obvious, right? Then why do so many artists count creation as dealing? The answer to that question is subjective to each person’s individual experience. We all have reasons for wanting to run away and hide, so I’ll share mine as that’s all I have to pull from:
When I sat down to write out my scene, I wanted to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of confrontation with my girlfriend because I realized the outcome we’d come to was not sufficient for me. We were able to agree that each of us were wrong for certain aspects of the communication breakdown, and ensuing argument, but my underlying insecurity hadn’t gone away (at this point, I will share that this situation involved another man, who my partner had been intimate with before our relationship).
Instead of broaching the subject with her, I chose to say what I wanted to a character, through another character, in my story. But that leaves me with no real consolation, and adds no value to my relationship — you know, the one that actually exists in reality.
Avoidance of stressors in a relationship usually leads to resentment, which bubbles up into anger, which can then tear down the foundations of a sturdy partnership you’ve worked hard to build. Choosing to create instead of dealing with my issues left me penning a letter to myself as the world crumbled around me.
The same goes for any aspect of life. If you simply avoid, and only create, you’re left with nothing. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that every single time you hit a wall, that you can process by using art or work as a crutch.
Don’t Act On Impulse, And Don’t Hide
Take a look at a quick Google search’s results on the word “impulse”:
“An act of impelling, a thrust, push,” from Latin impulsus “a push against, pressure, shock,” figuratively “incitment, instigation,” past participle of impellere “to strike against, push against,” from assmilated for of in- “into, in, on upon”…
What do you notice about the words within this etymological breakdown? Each one carries an intensity within them.
To “push” or “strike” brings up images of force, and as a writer I may only choose to use them for dramatic effect; to strike down and eliminate the opposing voices of those who say that art is an acceptable form of therapeutic release, in order to push their narrative of avoidance.
When communication breakdowns occur among people, it’s easy to fall into a fight or flight response. This leads to emotional reaction through behavior that is impulsive. Some people, like myself, understand that words and actions made on impulse carry a heavy weight to them (usually negative).
Many artists I’ve talked to feel the same way — we’re emotional beings who need to dump those emotions somewhere, lest we act on impulse. Someone who regularly acts on impulse, so long as they’re capable of self-reflection, understands that the resulting behaviors are those they’ll later regret. Because of this, in order to mitigate those behaviors they must avoid the impulse to act.
This is a great argument in favor of avoidance: Avoid situations that trigger negative emotions, so you can avoid acting on an impulse that you may feel powerless over, so you can avoid the negative consequences usually associated with succumbing to it.
If that’s the case, there’s still no excuse. Avoiding a confrontation because you’re afraid of what you might say or do is fine, but don’t hide out in your work.
You can instead avoid the initial confrontation, but return back to the issue when you can address it in a mannered way.
You’ll Feel Better, I Promise
What I realized when I re-triggered myself over the breakdown with my partner was this: The fact that I was angry again meant I had not dealt with the underlying issue, and I wasn’t going to write my way out of it (even though, I did write the scene and felt better about it in the moment). The only way to be truly free of the insecurity is to face it head-on — I had to deal with it.
Hiding your avoidance under the guise of creation isn’t a laudable act, no matter how great the resulting work. Sure, that painting may hang in a museum one day, or that script may make an Oscar-Winner out of you, and (if we take the movie The Social Network as a half-reality) that app you created because you were mad at your girlfriend may become the impetus for Facebook, but you are doing yourself no favors. Artists who don’t adequately process the underlying traumas that lead to their best works are still left with the hell that created them.
