To All Impassioned Artists Living In The Angst

Do you live your life very deeply, with more passion and emotions at the surface than others you know?

Is your world all about creating - to the extent you have to make yourself stop and take a break, or even go to sleep at night (or in the wee hours)?

You do so many things in diverse fields AND you do all of them well, right?

I know how you feel. Oh my goodness, do I ever!

You name it and I probably worked in the medium: everything from composing music to sculpting (with gem stones or food), to designing and building furniture, making web pages and movies. The list goes on and on.

Know what I mean? Of course you do. That is why you are still reading, yes?

Used to drive me bananas when craft show organizers insisted no one could do a really great job at more than one craft. Gee willikers.

Did they never hear of Leonardo Da vinci? Or Albert Einstein? Or you?

To get through all life crises I wrote a song--a poem set to music. I started writing when I was six. At eight, when my dad died unexpectedly, my song about my world got me through that episode.

My poetry and songs took me into the River Styx and out the other end up Mount Olympus.

I honesty doubt I would have come through so much upheaval and pain in my life if I could not write and sing (mostly to myself).

Then I woke up to the realization that I was choosing to feel the pain because of the myth of impassioned artists.

Hard to avoid the stories: Van Gogh cut off his ear and went insane; the writer, Virginia Woolf, committed suicide. The list goes on and on in all fields of creativity.

The stereotypical artist who lives perpetually in a state of melancholy may encourage creative outcasts to dig in their heels and insist that their pain motivates and inspires their work.