Comfortably (or Uncomfortably) Numb

Pearl Buck

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:  A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive.  To them a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.  Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create--so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off. ... They must create, must pour out creation.  By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.  Pearl Buck

I don't know how many people who are artists--or who desire to be artists--relate to Buck's statement.  I certainly do.  At first glance, this desire to create would seem like a burden.  And this is an idea I hope to discuss further in a future entry.  But if being of an artistic sensibility is a burden, then the very real and very wonderful fact is that the artist has an outlet for her or his hypersensitivity.  As the poet and essayist Diane Ackerman has stated, "Art offers a refuge from the burden of individuality."

One of the worst feelings one can have is feeling (knowing) that one is meant to create but  not being able to find the way to express that need.  It is like being lost.  I once experienced it as feeling as though I was lost in a hall of mirrors; everywhere I looked, I saw a distorted image of myself, but I was helpless to find the real me. 

There came a day of reckoning for me when I had to admit that despite all my reading and all my college degrees, I had no clue about how to proceed.  I was empty.  I had nothing to write about.  I didn't even know how to write.  From there it was a matter of taking a series of baby steps back to myself, back to the part of me that wanted to write.  It's a bit like that wonderful music film, Pink Floyd's The Wall.  Pink, an artist, is in a state of severe depression.  In finding his way back to his art again, he recalls his "little black book with the poems in it."  In other words, he goes back to when the experience of writing was new.  He has to remember that.  For him, it is a matter of being "born again" (the image is of being baptized with water from the commode; how powerful and how telling is that?)

As we go through life, the edge wears off that initial excitement we first had when we practiced our art.  This is perhaps inevitable because our brains need novelty to ignite our senses.  If we stop doing our art in order to do other necessities, our ability to do art becomes compromised.  Moreover, if we start "going through the motions" in life then what we "know" becomes dull, the truth of what we know becomes blunted.  As Hegel once said, "the known, just because it is known, is the unknown."  We begin to live as though our lives were not mysterious anymore.   Losing our contact with the mystery of life, we also lose the sense of being alive.  We sink into a state of brain rest.  Flatline.  We feel "Comfortably Numb," to borrow from Pink Floyd's famous song--or, worse, terrifyingly numb.  Is it possible to feel numb and terrified at the same time?  Yes it is.  Can you feel numb and a sense of panic at the same time?  Yes you can.  I have been there on both counts.

In a later post I would like to come back to this topic of numbness and how to get over it.  Meanwhile, I'd like to hear from others about this topic.  If you have advice, I'd love to know about it!

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COMFORTABLY NUMB

Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?

Come on, now.
I hear you’re feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.

Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re sayin’.
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I can’t explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb. ...