Tag Archives: the stifled artist

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

It’s Thursday. Time for the Thursday post.

To be honest, when I started this blog, I called it The Stifled Artist because I was feeling very stifled. I was in my twenties, and I kept choosing jobs I hated, so I decided to rant about them on the interwebs.

The blog was also an attempt to simply write more. And I’ve kept it up since 2007, so…

I also wanted to connect with other creative people. I would say I’ve been pretty successful in that regard, too. I didn’t find the millions I was looking for, but I did find a handful of cool people, fellow writers and musicians, who I know still read this thing even though they don’t comment. Which is one thing that keeps me still writing it. My psychic ability to deduce whether or not people are still reading it. Yep. You are. Don’t lie.

And why are you still reading it? Because. When you can read this thing and peek into my insanity, it makes you feel better about yours. Admit it. You’ve read this blog and been like, “Damn. She’s crazy. At least I’m not THAT crazy.”

How do I know this? Because. I do the same thing when I read other people’s personal writing. That’s the point. If it’s not entertaining, it makes you want to cry. It helps to hear what other people have struggled with. That’s the whole reason I do this thing even though the only reward really is the catharsis of being able to rant in public. We all make mistakes in our journey to get ourselves out there into the world. No artist is birthed in anything other than embryo with the potential for growth.

So, it still feels silly to call this The Stifled Artist, because I don’t feel stifled in the form of my art. But I don’t want to change it to something stupid like The Growing Artist or The Abundant Artist or The Jolly Happy Clever Artist. That would not reflect my macabre self-deprecating sense of humor and general cynicism mixed with an epic jug of hope.

***

When it comes to writing non-fiction from my personal life and writing lyrics to songs, I am shocked at the power of words to convey emotion across time and space. I never would have started writing anything here at all if I didn’t believe in that power. If you read some of Aleister Crowley’s writings on magick, he talks a lot about the magic of the word for manifestation of events and realities. Alan Moore talks about it too, as I mentioned in Writing As Magic.

I’m baffled by how writing something down can lead to that thing actually happening. I think we simply don’t believe enough. We keep ourselves beaten down because we’ve got this circus in our head of parental figures, teachers, exes and ratty neighbor kids telling us that our ideas are stupid and to get in the real world. It’s easier to limit ourselves, to create self-made boundaries and lines.

Well, I’m here to say that the real world is what you think the real world is. Beyond the physical structures that make up what we see in front of our eyes is a world we can’t confine or define, made up of our creations.

Here’s a personal example. I had a lady once tell me that she believe that the lyrics to songs she was listening to created her reality, so she only listened to happy songs. You’re integrating the words you listen to into your head every time you listen to them, she said. Imagine what that does to your subconscious.

Since I listen to a lot of very dark kind of mopey post-punk type music, I was averse to her projection. I am NOT going to stop listening to The Cure, I thought to myself. Robert Smith is amazing.

Recently I found an old song I’d written, that had seemingly come straight from my own subconscious. And what do you know. The lyrics applied exactly to a situation I was currently having in my life. Word for word. It was uncanny. I’d created precisely what I’d written about in my song in real life. Again.

I started listening to the lyrics to other songs of mine and found the same thing. In some instances, lyrics that had applied to an old scenario, now applied to a current situation as well.

What the fuck?

Words are powerful things. If you believe in the Bible (I think it’s likely a work of fiction, but I grew up being read the stories), the first line says, “In the beginning was the word.”

We create our realities to a large extent. How we perceive people and events around us, what our creations mean about our perceptions. Creation is a powerful tool. A lot of times we overlook that power because real life seems so subtle and innocuous and non-descript. Sometimes we’re just numb to our powers. It’s too scary to know how much we actually have.

Does this mean I’m going to start writing happy songs about bluebirds and Sesame Street type scenarios?

No.

But it does give me food for thought about how much energy to invest in creating songs about broken things. It feels like my songs are a boomerang sometimes. I throw them out there hoping to get rid of certain scenarios and emotions I’ve experienced, wanting to help others going through those same scenarios, but the scenarios and emotions just return right back to me.

To think I could create something and have it not be a part of me again is ludicrous I suppose, but I always thought once I created something it became it’s own thing outside of me with a power of its own to exist beyond my own limited interpretations. I think this is still true. But I’m starting to be more careful with what I’m manifesting with the songs I’m creating and listening to over and over again.

What if I created lyrics pertaining to a situation that was fabulous and awesome and not fucked up and then found myself in that situation? It’s worth an experiment.

What is Your Theme?

I’m always trying to decide what exactly I’m writing about here at the Stifled Artist. Looking at my history of tags it would seem that I am covering life, the universe and everything in the galaxy I should happen to stumble across. I rant about society, high-fructose corn syrup, and trying to do what you love and make enough money on the side at the same time without going crazy. I cover the economic crises, job tips for the creative unemployed worker and post random books reviews and video clips. I comment on social media, the long tail, and the dip as well as any other random marketing-type developments that might affect the careers of the young, aimless and talented. Sometimes I go on a tangent about my artistic relatives, what it’s like to live in the house my grandfather built, or just how beautiful the Bay Area is. The unifying theme seems to be life as an art project of observation laced with a sardonic sense of irony and humor.

All in all, I would say that I may have been stifled when I began this blog, but I have now reached overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed by topics, insights, and parallels. A lot of times I have great ideas I let fall into the gutter because I’m so rife with the hubbub of every day life I fantasize (albeit briefly) about someone paying my overhead in exchange for forty hours a week of my time.

The truth is, now that I’ve been working for myself on and off for the last eleven years of my life, I’m not sure I CAN work for “the man”, whoever that is. My father always told me that time is equal to money, and I value my meandering time. When I’ve strategically under worked through out the week I have to remind myself that I did it on purpose because I wanted to do more interesting things besides just earn money, and that no one is barking at me to pick up the pace. Things will accumulate on their own. They already have. Focus on entering into one door and it will undoubtedly lead to another. I call this serendipitous employment. (Not to say I don’t work hard in many bursts of effort).

I won’t be surprised if I’ve succeeded in supporting my dreams even further come next year. We’re either completely hemmed in by the drudgery of it all or ecstatic about the trippy way everything just seems to work out when you’re on the right path (eventually).

Sometimes thing don’t happen in a linear pattern. And a lot of times forcing things just makes everything worse all around. Do what you love…and accept that you won’t be rich. That’s my philosophy. Your dreams are your own, and no one can tell you not to go after them. No one can tell you you’re wrong, that you don’t have the knack, or that you need to do something better with your time. And the last thing I want to do with this short funny life is spend it sitting at a desk doing repetitive tasks. Not my bag baby. Not my bag.

This blog reflects my life’s themes and how they all weave together. What I find interesting in the world. How it all filters through my own crazy creative lens. What’s your theme?

Hold on. We are Trying to Establish a Connection…

Connection failed. Let’s try to reconnect. Hold please.
Connection failed. Hold Please.
connection
fail
ed
hold.on.

No updates from the stifled artist because the connection has failed. She has been put on hold. Found useless. Sent in for repair.

There is no place in the world that is at peace, at least, according to her last reports.

When we tried to reach her for comment, she alternated between screaming at us and sobbing hysterics, at least we think that was her.

We found the broken glass outside her window, the Writer’s Market 2008, sodden from the rain.

A note, presumably from her pocket read, “ran into another former coworker today. said she missed me. it was nice to see her, but at the same time I hate to be reminded of yet another group to which I could not assimilate. I resign. From resigning.”

We can only speculate from the facts at the scene, when we gave up on trying to speak with her in person, told her we missed her blog posts, left messages taped on her door.

“You’re all just me in a parallel universe telling me you appreciate me. What the hell does that mean to me now, here, in this universe. go the hell back to your own respective parallel whatever place your from and leave me alone”, she psychically screeched at us, jolting us all, effectively, at the same moment.

We’re a little shocked, but think she may be right. Maybe only reincarnations of herself could put through with such blatantly uncommunicative behavior. With all due respect, her former coworkers forgot she existed and refuse to comment when we ask questions. She shouldn’t have a phone, I mean, it never rings, really.

But now, we feel we’re being too judgemental. We can only make up tales because she, herself, has left the premises of her own judgement, and has cast herself off into an abyss somewhere that something very miraculous would have to happen to penetrate.

So, we’ll hope for that something miraculous, like, maybe the recession will recede, the depression will depress, and money will start falling from the sky. Perhaps she’ll meet people who will barter, skill for skill, and money will become irrelevant. Best-case scenario would be Iowa City. Why? Because some writer she read once is a creative writing professor there, so it must be possible somewhere, and why not Iowa?

Perhaps the death and the firings and the job after job and the lack of future security has beset upon her like the famines of Job in the Bible? We would hope she wouldn’t be so dramatic, but she does tend to get into these “states” as we like to call them.

So, for now, the stifled artist has left the building, and we are carrying on in her stead. Perhaps we are just one last atom, the one last that is left of her morale, that carries on, even in her absence.

We’ll let you know if she decides she wants to come back, if she dies an untimely death, or…if she ever gets over her cold.

Finding a Niche.

There are a lot of people working much harder than I am for the very same dreams that I want.

Maybe I have too many toxins flowing through my body.

Maybe I’ve been infected with too much you’re-good-enough-as you-are hippy BS.

Maybe I’m just in some type of limbo.

You see, what they don’t teach you in this world is that for most of us, reaching our dreams takes a long time and a whole lot of work, dedication and commitment.

In an American Idol country, this is NOT what we want to hear.

We want to be able to just wish our dreams true. But if you have a wish in one hand and a pile of shit in the other, what have you really got?

I was just reading an interesting blog entry by Seth Godin, about something pertaining to the new music industry and the long tail, but I am much too tired to go ranting about.

Instead I am listening to bands I admire who I’ve found because access to all sorts of music is exploding. I am trying to picture soothing white light around their bodies so that I can accept their successes, as Susan O’Doherty suggests here.

Ah, the life of a stifled artist is one best left to my own interpretation.

I have too much to say and too little time. I’m blasting out my corner in the world, I’m throwing around wrecking balls, I’m tearing down old buildings, planting crazy spider plants and birds of paradise so that I can build an expressive house of music, pictures and writing. It will be a rock from which I aim my talents at the world and say, “Here I am bitches. Come and get it,” in true Chapelle fashion.

The Stifled Artist Defines Her Point

Apparently there is an etiquette to blog writing.

Rule #1: Stay on topic.

What is my topic?

Anything I choose to write about as a “stifled” artist.

The web definition for stifled is “smothered: held in check with difficulty.”

The web definition for artist is “a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination.”

Because those two definitions define me and my recent life, I am in a perpetual headlock with myself — always searching for a way.

This blog began as “various societal rants from a marginalized human being.”

Marginalize means “to relegate or confine to a lower or outer limit or edge, as of social standing.”

I have been marginalized by society throughout my life in a number of ways.

It started out bad. I grew up in an artistic family. My father is a concert pianist. My parents were entrepreneurs and started their own business, so I learned firsthand that working for other people sucks more than working for yourself, and that ideal was pounded into my head through the course of my early life.

I grew up on a street with only boys, so I learned to be tough and was a typical tomboy. These days, I work in a world that is still largely dominated by men (the music and writing worlds). I love men, but I am most definitely not one.

I grew up in a Mormon family, but from childhood had a hard time with that religion. These days I ascribe to something more like existentialism peppered with an ample amount of zen and nowism.

Though the topics drift based on whim and circumstance of the day, I do have an agenda here–to keep up my writing practice and to build a body of rants about being an artist in a fucked-up society that beats the backs of those who enrich it, and to somehow find my own salvation, to not be marginalized, stifled or put upon any longer. To be an entrepreneur, make my own hours, do what I love. To share that with other people. And I will prevail.

The Dysfunctional Artist, Part 1

The deviant artist checks out more than twenty books from the library at a time. Like a gorilla, she picks them up, pulls them apart, and throws them back in the drop box. The deviant artist spends her down time at work pining away about the good life, although she has no idea what the definition of this is.

The deviant artist like the dysfunctional artist or the stifled artist. I am beginning to think I am the dysfunctional artist, looping back through foreign paths to come to myself, taking alternate routes. Never accepting what anyone else says without a bathtub of salt. Leave the water behind, soak up the magnesium. “Now I know how Joan of Arc felt.”

The dysfunctional artists bleeds words from every orifice. She stabs at insight with a pen, crossing out the i’s and dotting the t’s.

Sometimes she needs drugs to cope. She always gets them, but mostly, she stays in the cave of her own cold mind, dark and illuminated only with a couple of cigarettes a night to keep the demons at bay.

The dysfunctional artist finds a chance to vociferate at every chance, even if it’s only to herself, at home, when everyone else has turned out the lights. She laughs at others her age who manage to publish their stoic memoirs, and then go on to publish books on “how to write”. There is no lesson to be taught. How to write is integral, it happens daily, it morphs or retracts itself depending on subtle conditions beyond it’s control. Is the sun completely out? Has the moon come to join it? What of the wind and the waves…are we near waves? Writing escalates and divines on some days, oscillating or undulating at will. It shrinks back on others, hides under the bed like a feral black animal, claws outstretched for action. Come a little closer, says writing on those days. I have something to *scratch* you.

The dysfunctional artists fancies one thing on one day, another thing on the next. Sometimes nothing at all but a blank-lined book, a napkin, a day planner. Sometimes the pen makes her break out in a rash, feverish. Pressured by some unseen force, as brutal as a magnetic field of bullets.

Has the world left you ravaged yet?

Has it left you famished in your place?

Now you’re ready to write.