When a person’s desire to be creative overwhelms his artistic talents, the end-products of his imagination tend toward the dull and disturbing. Unpleasant greys and browns and awkward beiges take hold in places where bright colors could have and should have dominated the senses. When colors and forms and techniques are applied in unwise combinations, even brilliant visions can quickly decay into rancid pools of unattainable possibilities. Creativity then becomes an irreversible mistake, at best, or an unavoidable expression of intentional bleakness. Still, even in the knowledge that my creative efforts probably are destined to fail, I sometimes give in to my impatience—I avoid learning the techniques, the blending of colors, and the boundaries of creative expression. In other words, bypassing the processes required for success, I come to the inescapable conclusion that I am incapable of achieving anything but failure. For those reasons, I prefer solitude when I attempt to be creative. The embarrassment associated with near-certain failure is easier to accept when one is alone. But the degree to which one’s creative efforts may be slightly better than awful exists on that ever-present continuum; horrid on one end, magnificent on the other, unreachable, end.
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I am so damn tired of feeling weak and weary and uncertain. Those brief periods when I feel like I am emerging from an almost opaque fog boost my mood for a while, but that mood soon burrows into a dark cave, taking me with it. I can disguise the dark emptiness temporarily, but the mask refuses to stay put for long. And so I sleep. I am not sure whether I sleep because my body needs the rest or because my mind needs the respite from its incessant whining.
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Awake at 4, finally out of bed at 5:30, ready to sleep again at 7:45. But I will not sleep; not just yet. The day has yet to unfold.
