This was not the case.
In my old apartment in Oakland, I spent many a nights sitting around with close friends painting anything and everything we could get our hands on, but I didn't feel like I was making any art that was truly great. Night after night, sitting on the floor, re-purposing someone elses trash into useful, colorful items for my house, I still felt stifled. It was like I couldn't breath. But in hindsight, the out pour of creative energy was massive. My friends and I would sit there for hours, listening to music and creating, so many different things that the house began to overflow with items we had painted, sewn, modge-podged, cut-up, and glued back together.
I have begun to realize why I was so inspired in Oakland and can't seem to pick up a paint brush in the Caribbean. I'm happy. I don't want to make a huge generalization about artitsts, but a large majority of great art is born out of great strife. Pain, misery, discontent, frusturation, these emotions lend an edge to us, which greats a dynamic, whereby we feel the need to express ourselves. For me, being unhappy in Oakland pushed me to create, and to write. It's this same, strange feeling of happiness that has lead to my writer's block. If I'm not complaining about the state of the world, the state of my country, or my city, or the state of my own mental health, what am I really talking about? And why? Who wants to read about someone who is so damn happy?
Another identity crisis has been born out of my newfound joy. For years I have been the friend that you come to with your problems. I'm really good at listening to people's problems, issues, helping them through hard times, giving them advice on how to change their life. My ability to empathize and relate to my friends through their dark times felt like my greatest talent that I had to offer, and I believe (who knows, though I could be wrong), that I helped a lot of people kickstart the next chapter in their life and deal with some of the challenges they were facing. Since leaving behind my own angst and dispair, I feel I am also losing this talent as well.
It's not that I can no longer empathize with others about their issues, it's just that I can't relate as much anymore. When I hear my friends complaining about their problems, I feel a disconnect.
I don't have anymore problems.
Sure, some things happen, like my dog getting sick and throwing up all night long. Or rain the day I did laundry so my clothes have to stay on the line for another sunny day. Sometimes the internet goes out and I have to go to my friend's hostel to do my online work, but other than that, I have no problems. My relationship is great. My house is great. My job is great. I love my life. My family is happy and healthy. My dogs get a walk to the beach everyday. My life is good. I live in the Caribbean and I ride my bike around this whacky little town that I now call home.
The only thing I have to complain about, is that I have nothing to complain about. And so begins the deconstruction of the narrative of my life as I have known it. Growing up in the United States it seems there are always problems. Big problems, national problems, crime, unemployment, poverty, over-crowded prisons, natural disasters, political scandals, divorce rates on the rise, illiterate children, teen moms, the list of horrible problems goes on and on. So, we as individuals are conditioned to believe that our lives are filled with insurmountable problems that also need solving before the next problem arises. My existence, up until now, has been problem solving, for myself and my friends. And when a problem was so great that I could not solve it, the emotions associated with that problem spilled out in the form of paint, poetry, and passion.
I'm not saying moving to a new place will immediately solve all your problems. A new location doesn't mean all your deep-seeded issues just melt away, but it can change the narrative that you've created for yourself. I'm not endorsing running away from your problems, either. That doesn't tend to work. But if there is a life you've envisioned for yourself, and you're not living it, find a way to make it happen. Define your own reality.
Maybe it's all the sunshine down here, all the tanned, attractive people biking around in bathing suits, or the fact that it's always happy hour at some bar in town. Maybe it's the organic vegetables and chicken that I eat, or the fresh seafood. Maybe it's the hummingbirds that come and say good morning every day while I sit on my porch. Who knows what is responsible for all this damn happiness. All I know is life is good. Now, I just need to find a way to create art out of this new-found happiness and see if joy can be just as responsible for great works of art as angst is.
Have a listen to this today, and Don't Worry, Be Happy.
