Working the Problem

Think of the subconscious as a great river.

No. Oh god, I really just typed that. Well I’m damn sure not using that. A well? No no. Subconscious. Creativity. Inspiration, blah blah. This isn’t working. There’s a metaphor out there somewhere that doesn’t sound schmaltzy and forced, but I can’t think of what it would be right now. I also can’t believe that “schmaltzy” isn’t being caught by spellcheck. And yet “spellcheck” is! What kind of topsy-turvy world is this?

I am feeling thoroughly paradoxical this evening, which is not uncommon for me, as my personality would best be described as a stew of paradoxes. I am feeling deeply creative and simultaneously completely uninspired, and as I type these words this sensation is running well into its fourth consecutive night.

Which means I probably won’t be sleeping well again.

I was going to do something with the whole “subconscious-as-a-river” thing because I like starting off with an analogy, but that’s awful, just truly awful. It reeks of bad high school writing, very angst-y and self-indulgent, and I already have a whole file of writings like that on my computer. I get nothing by adding to the list. So let’s shoot for something a little more insightful, a little more real, shall we? And with a little luck we can side-step most of the usual clichés.

As I was saying, I have all this pent-up energy. This is probably due to a number of reasons. First off, it’s winter, I’m in New England, and it’s fucking cold out. And so instead of going running at night or going for long walks, or sitting in the park reading a book, I’ve been staying in my apartment where it’s warm. Which would be perfectly fine, really, except that I am also unemployed. I just moved to a new city and left my old job back in my old home along with most of my belongings. It’s only been a few weeks and I’m sure I’ll find work soon, and while being unemployed has me concerned, it’s not what’s putting me in this mood. What’s putting me in this mood is the fact that being unemployed means that other than job-search for a few hours each morning, I have nothing to do all day.

In a city where I know no one, where my finances are limited and my primary mode of transportation is my feet, and where, again, it really is fucking cold outside.

I knew a guy once who claimed that he never got bored. It just didn’t happen. He could sit around all day doing absolutely nothing (and I witnessed him doing just that on many occasions) and never feel even a twinge of boredom. And he told me this, I think, very matter-of-factly, the way you would say “I have never been able to whistle,” or “I have an excellent sense of smell.” Just offering information, one friend to another. But the truth is, I always thought that was horrible, and something that-- unlike, say, not knowing how to whistle-- spoke very poorly of him.

He got bored just like anyone else, of that I’m quite certain. His problem was, he didn’t care. Boredom didn’t bother him. He thought it was just fine.

I think of boredom as the mental equivalent of your foot falling asleep. It’s your brain saying “Okay, you’ve been in that position quite long enough, thank you. You’re cutting off circulation and it’s time to move.” I think of boredom as a warning sign, and for me, boredom is very closely connected with guilt. If I’m bored for too long, I feel awful for all the things that I could have been doing and wasn’t. I spend a great deal of time and energy fighting off boredom. I hate to think that I’m wasting my life.

It is not in any way strange or unexpected that I should feel bored given my current circumstances. That I get. What makes my current situation strange is that my usual methods of staving off boredom do not seem to be working. I have run out of things to do, watch, read, or listen to. Not really, of course, but for all intents and purposes, since I don’t want to spend a lot of money right now. Likewise for going someplace, especially since I don’t have a car and public transit is not all-encompassing. Generally that would leave me with either drawing, painting, or writing.

Except that I don’t know what to draw, or paint, or write.

From before: the gist of the metaphor was going to be that I have all these creative juices welling up inside, but don’t really have the inspiration necessary to act as an outlet. My proof for this is that, as previously stated, I couldn’t come up with a way to explain this without sounding like a tool.

I’ve reached an impasse with my art. I’ve been producing paintings and drawings and prints and photographs and god knows what else more or less nonstop for the past five years. I have a pretty good memory for these things. I can remember sitting on my bed in my dorm room freshman year and working on drawings for class, and as I shuffle through them in my head, they were all awful. I mean really, genuinely just bad. I can see each of them, going month by month, year by year, even the ones I’ve long since thrown away. This is important to me, that I have this gift of memory, that I can see every piece I’ve ever done quite clearly in my mind, because I have almost thirty grand in student loans and I need to know that that money went someplace. So I close my eyes and I picture a group of three drawings that I did in the fall of 2001 and another set that I did some five years later, and while I may not be 100% on board with the second bunch I fucking hate the first. So there’s a curve.

My skills as an artist have improved beyond all recognition. I can do things now that I couldn’t have dreamed of then. And my ideas are better now, too, I’m more thoughtful and contemplative about the moves I’m making. We grow older, we get more mature, or so goes the theory. But for about two or three years now I’ve been brushing up against this same wall and by now I’m slamming into it head-first: what is the point of all this? What am I doing, why I am doing it, what do I really want to be doing, and why should anyone else possibly care? I can’t answer those questions. The truth is, I make art because it never occurred to me not to, which is fine to start with, but you reach a point where that’s just masturbation. “Because” is a four-year-old’s answer; it’s unsatisfying for me and it’s damn sure unsatisfying for an audience.

I’ve been hitting that wall over and over without making a dent, and all the while the ideas have gradually slowed to a halt. Even the images aren’t coming now. Inspiration has left the building, kids. I pick up a pen and a sketchbook and for the life of me, I don’t have any idea where to begin. Last week I sat on my couch with a sketchbook on my lap and stared at it for an hour before I finally put it away. What could I do? Nothing seems right. Nothing fits. I can’t make my hands move. I’m stuck.

It’s the same way with my writing. Alright, obviously I’m able to write all this, and I’ve been doing an okay job with my correspondence, but nothing else, really. My last couple of essays have been lackluster; my aborted attempts at fiction have been an embarrassment even though no one else will ever see them. I am completely stuck.

Which brings us back to where we started off, my mood. I’ve got all this energy pent up and no outlet. All dressed up, and no place to go. The result has been strange behaviors and fitful, dreamless sleep. I shaved my hair and my goatee off Saturday night. Yesterday I spent an hour and twenty minutes staring two paintings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Franz Kline’s Torches Mauve and Cy Twombly’s Fifty Days at Iliam, Part VI: Shades of Achilles, Patroclus, and Hector) before walking back home and listening to the same Camera Obscura album three times. Today I lied on the floor and read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas cover to cover and then chased the whole thing down with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide. None of these things can possibly be seen as healthy and productive. The way this is heading, in a day or two I’m going to enter some sort of fugue state and have obscure Latin phrases tattooed all over my torso. I’ll wake up and discover that I’ve joined an indie rock band despite not being able to sing or play an instrument. Nobody should have to live like this.

Clearly, steps must be taken.

I think getting a job and getting out of the house for more than a few hours at time will be a positive move, but ultimately I’m going have to face up to the real problem, which is that I’ve completely lost my swing and don’t know how to get it back. And man, if you think finding a job is tough...

The key has to be what I’m doing right now, which is just working things out. I have to talk it out, write it down, journal, free associate, whatever, until I find something that makes sense and then I go from there. Yes, I’ve been doing that in varying degrees for several weeks with nothing to show for it, but that doesn’t mean I just give up. Maybe I can’t force inspiration, but I can be ready for it, y’know?

I wonder if I should try meditating.

It’s February 20th. The winter isn’t nearly over yet. Not by a long shot.