Far smarter people than I have probably explored this topic far more eloquently and in broader ways than I ever could, so I shouldn’t really belabour myself with the task of defending creativity, and yet, I’ll say this: creativity shouldn’t be squashed for the sake of sanity because it lends itself to sanity.
Fear might deter some. That fear has deterred people in my life, and those people went on to deter me from being creative. Fear says creativity encourages madness. Fear says creativity causes chaos, disrupts structure.
I think creativity gives chaos form. Creativity examines chaos, gives it a name (or several), seeks to understand it, expose it, create balance within it.
‘Creation is an act of clarification.’ Iris Murdoch
While defending creativity has merit, seeking to alleviate the fears of those who find it too unruly and unpredictable, too self-indulgent (even as they hypocritically consume the products of creativity), is fruitless; the best way to defend creativity is to create. I find that when I create, it restores within me a sense of balance.
It’s difficult to see a person’s inner balance if there is little or nothing outside of the self by which to gauge it, which can be true if a person is introverted or guarded for some other undetailed reason; or, indeed, if the surrounding external chaos of a person is confusing—overlapping or opaque, as to its source. It might then be difficult to really see the effects of creativity, causing people to pre-conclude that creativity breeds dysfunction, while ignoring the very real benefits it can bring.
For instance, Heather Stuckey, D.Ed., and Jeremy Nobel, M.D., M.P.H., as noted on Psychiatry.org, state that art therapy “complements the biomedical view by focusing on not only sickness and symptoms themselves but the holistic nature of the person.” While my holistic responses echo this view, my thoughts quickly turn to some of society’s demonisation of artistic pursuits, and it makes me wonder: how many of us are doomed to only find these benefits after the fact? In other words, do we have to end up in psychiatric wards to be able to freely pursue, without further judgement, beneficial acts of self-care and what can often amount to making sense of the world? Or can we defend our purpose and keep creating anyway? Perhaps, we can keep raising awareness, keep promoting and supporting one another in honest ways, so that we can retain the freedom of self-expression and reclaim ourselves in the process.
It often seems that along with society’s general fear regarding creativity and assumed association with dysfunction, it is largely overlooked that the dysfunction comes from trauma itself and that creativity is both an outlet and a means to overcome trauma and build resilience. It seems to me that prominent artists and their artwork, whether that’s a book, a movie, or a painting or poem, are renowned and celebrated for the power of representation their art carries for so many, but the acknowledgement often comes without recognition of the judgement-laden years often spent in solitude (whether surrounded by peers or not), even if this solitude was voluntary, or involuntary and a by-product of co-morbid struggles, or quietly hidden, before recognition, before producing something deemed worthy enough by a majority of society. This is not resentment as someone who creates without ‘external success and reward’ but rather, quite simply, a quiet observation of the parallels between acceptance of the self based on societal perception and acceptance of the pursuit of art as an extension of the self. Is there a direct link? While artists certainly don’t HAVE to suffer to create, is it fair to say that artists (writers, painters, musicians, et al.) have already suffered and that art is an exploration to understand and share what can be found within the deviations of trauma?
With or without art as both a conduit and lifeline, an individual’s efforts of self-improvement can be easily undermined by any measure of society, whether in an effort to control, if not to understand. When faced with this, defending creativity became too difficult for me; cutting it out of my life as directed made life too difficult. My life has become more bearable with my re-embracement of creativity. This is how I healed. This is how I am healing.
It’s difficult to dissect another person (the way I’ve been torn and twisted by others) to get to the root of anything without destroying both root and growth. How something grows after it’s been twisted is no longer a natural process. It has to, first, be healed, unbent, given space, then… it reaches for the light, as it is within its nature to do. To assume it cannot see the light nor reach the light, to bend it against its will, is to slowly kill it.
That’s far darker than any art.
‘The imagination does not breed monsters; it tames them.’ G. K. Chesterton
