The Artist's Way

I get crabby.
As an artist, I can literally die from boredom. I kill myself
when I fail to nurture my artist child because I am acting
like somebody else’s idea of an adult. The more I nurture
my artist child, the more adult I am able to appear. Spoiling
my artist means it will let me type a business letter. Ignoring
my artist means a grinding depression.
There is a connection between self-nurturing and self-
respect. If I allow myself to be bullied and cowed by other
people’s urges for me to be more normal or more nice, I sell
myself out. They may like me better, feel more comfortable
with my more conventional appearance or behavior, but I
will hate myself Hating myself, I may lash out at myself and
others.
If I sabotage my artist, I can well expect an eating binge,
a sex binge, a temper binge. Check the relationship between
these behaviors for yourself When we are not creating,
artists are not always very normal or very nice—to ourselves
or to others.
Creativity is oxygen for our souls. Cutting off our
creativity makes us savage. We react like we are being
choked. There is a real rage that surfaces when we are
interfered with on a level that involves picking lint off of us
and fixing us up. When well-meaning parents and friends
push marriage or nine-to-five or anything on us that doesn’t
evolve in a way that allows for our art to continue, we will
react as if we are fighting for our lives—we are.
To be an artist is to recognize the particular. To appreciate