Catching Idle Butterflies

Deflated balloons

A great work of art is a form of suicide. ~ Al Alverez

Art is a form of catharsis. ~ Dorothy Parker

One quote is dark, the other is hopeful, but both contain the same truth.

When I completed my first novel, I felt elated that I finished such a daunting task when I had no idea I could do it. The feeling lasted about two hours before I sunk into a surprising depression.

I realized after three days of this funk why I felt it.

I agree writing can be a great catharsis. zwisis felt this when she wrote about why she had to leave Zimbabwe in her blog. Something about seeing my emotions, my thoughts and imagination taking shape and life on the page gives me a feeling of release, a lightness of being. It gives me also an opportunity to share them with others, to know I am not as alone, or as strange, as I first thought.

But after releasing it all, I can’t help but feel like a deflated balloon, stretched, empty and useless. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. Solitary Man expressed this feeling after emptying himself of his past in his blog. windac expressed the same in the latest edition of the Spiritual newsletter.

Knowing the inevitability of this feeling whenever I complete a large project, I have a difficult time finishing. I make excuses as to why I can’t complete it:

1. My internal editor won’t leave me alone

2. I don’t know where the story is going.

3. I don’t have the time.

4. I have other, more important projects to tackle.

But in completing our stories or articles, or even blog entries, why do we get this empty feeling? Are we truly empty?

I say not. What I think happens is we spend so much time in one world, learning everything we can about it, when we find ourselves stepping outside of it in a different place, we feel lost and adrift because this new place is so unfamiliar. (How’s that for a long sentence?)

The task then is to leave the previous world behind and begin to explore the new. That alone is scary, because who knows what we’ll discover then? We again know nothing and we have to expend as much energy, spill as much blood, and steal time from other things in order to continue to explore . . . to write.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

~ Anais Nin