Depression and Creativity.

A long-winded musing to say that we're so back.

Earl Sweatshirt’s sophomore album, a fitting descriptor.

This post is not written with any grand message nor any fully fleshed out point to make about anything I am about to put forth to you. Nor is there any real point to saying this other than it being something I feel like I have to get out of my system so I can get back to ‘normal’. This is (allegedly) a weekly blog. It’s been at least 35 days since I’ve been able to articulate a single thought. For the past two months, I’ve been going through what you might classify as a depressive episode. Why isn’t really important, but I have been observing how the state of depression has influenced what it is I’ve been able, or rather, been unable, to produce for release. And I guess this post will serve as a return of sorts, because this Substack was 110% meant to be a weekly exercise for me to purge my thoughts. And it was that for a generous 3 weeks. But such is life isn’t it?

One thing I’ve known about myself for as long as I’ve been creating, and even further back than that in a subconscious sense, is that I’m very instinctual. The use of the word instinctual is intentional, because I feel as though impulsive carries almost a stigma with it that’s kind of unfair. But that’s neither here nor there. To the average person, to be impulsive is to act on the first feeling that rises in your chest without thought. That doesn’t really apply to me in any capacity any more. I think about my actions before I do them a lot. However, it’s not really the thought that dictates what exactly I choose to do. I’m someone who can ponder on a potential course of action to its logical conclusion, accounting for any deviations that I can think of, and still end up going in the complete opposite direction. Reason being, I can only do what I *feel* is natural or at the very least, not opposed to what I believe comprises the ego identity [see ‘To Live In Limbo’ for more]. In essence, my creativity, while premeditated, is predicated wholly upon my ability to feel a variety of emotions, and most crucially, curiosity.

As I’ve advanced through life, experiencing an immeasurable number of things that would shape me in one way or another and therefore influence the reason why I create, the number one reason will always be an unfiltered curiosity. Which is why I have my hand in so many pots. I don’t nor have I ever had any grandiose dreams about stardom, legacy, or familial encouragement that would mean I feel compelled to create what it is I do create. The only real reason remains honestly, is just to scratch the proverbial itch, the part of my brain that asks me constantly “what if I did [insert something I’m not presently doing]”? 

Which brings me onto why I haven’t written, or at least, my hypothesis. For me, someone whose essence relies on feeling and whose creative output relies on curiosity, I found that a depressive episode envelops both things. Not that this is my first bout with one, but this is indeed my first one while I have been engaging creative outlets in earnest. So I was hard pressed for an answer as to why this episode was affecting me so much. Because let me be clear. I’ve had the same amount of ideas, thoughts, and concepts flash through my mind as they usually do. However, none of them evoked curiosity in me. None of them evoked any feeling for that matter, except a sharp disinterest in anything that didn’t pertain to my specific situation. My first thought was that maybe the ideas were all lacklustre. Maybe, over the course of a single night, I had suddenly become wholly and truly jaded and had lost any semblance of love I had for the art of expression. So I tried committing to stopping. That didn’t last longer than 4 hours. So what exactly was it? 

It wasn’t until a few conversations about the prospect of me giving up creating all together (a prospect that did not go over at all), that I began to grasp what effect this episode was having on my output. It wasn’t that I had simply forgotten all the experience I had with creating, but more so that a dense and thick fog had set in my life, for lack of the clinical terms for it. Waking up, going to sleep, waking up, going to sleep. Days blurred into weeks which turned into months and in between that time, it truly felt like the feelings I have depended on throughout my day to day life, let alone creativity, were excavated. Carefully, meticulously and systematically erased, so that by the time I had finally begun what I can describe as a desperate thrash back to feel any semblance of what there was before, I began to question myself and ask what exactly was truly there in the first place. Was the urge to create a figment of my imagination? Is it something I projected to cover up some deep seated insecurity? Was I blind to my inadequacy and creating on pure dumb luck? 

If you’re reading this, it should be more than apparent that the answer to all questions above was obviously no, after some real soul searching mind you. But as I am writing this article in a feverish experience of fresh sharp clarity I haven’t had since I was a naive child, the reason why the answer is a no is the crux of this creation. To put it simply, this depressive episode has acted as what I can only describe as the heaviest, seemingly immovable weighted duvet in the world. After life presents disappointment and rejection as what I can only describe as an arctic cold, the natural response would be to slink back into what you know to be comfortable. Much like a duvet. The catch is, once you’re under that duvet, leaving is nowhere near as straightforward as relapsing was. The isolation that once was the comfort and shield from your own insecurities now morphs into a prison that, most frighteningly, you see no reason to leave. Because, during the duration of this episode, try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I couldn’t see any reason to. At least in the confines of my mind, I couldn’t feel anything that would push me over an edge I felt as though I was teetering dangerously close to. Even if that came at the cost of feeling all the things that define the experience of life as I know it. But truthfully, somewhere in the midst of the unholy matrimony of dissociation and apathy that defines a depressive episode, the people around me were able to pull me from only being able to offer a dulled acknowledgement of the world speeding past me back into a place where my heart beats in my chest loudly and I am now myself again, not just observing a body that looks a lot like me. 

But in truth, there was no effort I put in that would have saved me. If left to my own devices, I never would have picked up a pen or my Chromebook and uttered another word, that much I am sure of. So me being here doing just that is not something I take credit for. If anything, I am just quietly grateful that by intervention that could only be divine, I’ve ended up with people who would relight the candle that I let get snuffed out. It served as a reminder that creation is in and of itself an experience we share with many, although a lot of us can get in our heads and feel as though the world is on our shoulders and it's a burden we must bear. It's not. But it’s often the simple things that we complicate the most, or at least it’s always been so in my experience. I say all this to say: we’re back to regularly scheduled programming innit.