I was tempted to not write this down, but I’m afraid my future deliberations don’t make much sense if I omit this.
I struggle with identity. I don’t have enough of it or at least I don’t understand enough of my own inner workings to make something of me. My art and storytelling suffers from this, too. But today I have actually learned something that might help me to get ahead.
There is another reason why I don’t like rereading books or repetitions of any kind. Everything is emotional labor, coping with it, and when the work is too good and moves me too much, that causes a lot of emotion, especially pain. I would like to avoid this. I have a hard time enjoying new things, as I can’t know how much pain they will cause me. And I surely don’t like returning to things I’ve worked through already to relive the pain or possibly have some new one. This also explains why I like to stick to „safe“ genres like horror and action. Those usually do not challenge you emotionally. And of course, if everything is pain, there’s also a big need for comfort, such as food.
I haven’t seen it like this before but this is totally what it is. Also, it is not only about literature, everything promises pain. But I can’t not live to avoid the pain. Also, if I avoid emotion altogether, I am cutting myself off from the very thing I’m supposed to work with and create for others. I can even trace back when I decided to not feel to one single day in elementary school when an older boy intimidated me for fun on the school yard and made me drop my lunch sandwich on the concrete. I decided I’m going to be strong and not feel anymore. Understandable why a child would come to such a conclusion, but not the healthiest way to deal with problems in the long run. And my emotional development might be stunted since then. The social development was stunted too but caught up by now, for the other one I hope I still have time to get it right. Am I still mad about it? No. Nothing compares to the horrors of being a child and becoming aware of not being and not being treated as a „full“ human being.
When I’m at my best, I’m fearless. This doesn’t mean I don’t experience fear, but that I confront it. I’m not Kandinsky, so my art doesn’t have an abstract conceptual mission (yet). But how about this one: Read my art as me tackling what I’m afraid of most, because this is what I promise myself to tackle. I have some emotional development to make. This doesn’t contradict my rule about my art being made with love and coming from love. I love myself, so I want myself to heal and improve. I want to be brave, courageous, in my native language: mutig.
