Disconnected

Some people can write through their pain. I'm not one of them.

You always hear it said that the greatest art, the finest writing, the most profound music... these things are created out of an attempt to deal with the suffering and the sorrow that is inherent to the human condition. You hear it said that it's a good thing we're not perfect, that we're not in Paradise yet, because nobody paints or writes or composes in Paradise.

Because to create art by ink or paint or voice is the attempt to capture a little piece of perfection for one's life. And that's something you can't do if perfection is what you already have.

We need the hunger. We need the inequity, the imbalance, so that we might long to fill the hole inside.

But I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to take those feelings and make them into art, make them into a composition that will create some tiny piece of good out of how this feels. I'm not saying that it's impossible. Not saying that others can't or shouldn't do it. I'm just saying that I don't know how.

I know it's wrong, but to me, I always think of art as something that's beautiful. Majestic. Pretty. I know that there is art that is disturbing, art that's raw and visceral and twisted, because that's the human condition in its most primal state, and art is a reflection of that condition. It's okay to paint with your own blood.

But I don't know how. I wish that I did, I wish I knew how to take these parts that are twisted and broken and base, and make them into something meaningful. I wish, I wish I could make it into something, anything. But I guess the truth is that I'm afraid to try, I'm afraid to create something ugly. I'm selfish enough, I'm arrogant enough, that I only want to create pretty things. Only the best!

I'm proud enough to think that I can do a better job than God did.

Pride and insecurity are strange bedfellows.

I think, if I allow myself to be so brutally introspective, and hey, if I'm not going to be brutal about it, I really should just take my ball and go home, you know? If I allow myself the cold comfort of brutality for a moment, I can get a glimpse of the reason why I only want to write from a comfortable place, from an easy and happy place. It's because I do want people to think that I'm like my creations. I don't want to expose all the wrong, I want to be special and different, the most unique little snowflake ever.

There's no phrase as ridiculous to me as "most unique."

So I only write when I'm good, when it is good. And it's like editing parts of my life away, you know? Because if people only see what I tell them, only glimpse the pieces of me that I want them to glimpse, well, how's that for a perfect mask? How's that for the ultimate recreation of yourself in the eyes of the world? I can be anybody I want to be. So, yeah, I grab that mask and I wear it, and nobody gets to see the broken parts that we're all too scared to admit to ourselves and to each other.

Better to hide those shards deep inside. Put a mask on that shit.

I'm not even saying that it's wrong. I'm just saying that it was easy.