Do you make art? I don't know how it feels to lose a family member to suicide, but I do remember how it feels to feel nothing. I started making art... In reality I forced myself to make art. Doodling first, then drawing and sketching and more complicated designs. I learned that art is like exercising, but instead of building muscle I was building physical emotions, in a sense. I had to train myself to make something tangible out of my thoughts and feelings in a way that I could prove to myself that they existed at all.
It wasn't easy, it was hard. Painful and scary and exciting and anxiety inducing and hopeful. I started by forcing myself to do it but the more and more I practiced the easier it became to search for inspiration within myself - like digging a well. At first it was sand and dust and rock; nothing alive. But the deeper I dug I found clay and mud and water and eventually I _learned_ how to find that spring of life within myself, and I could use that water to irrigate the fields and find life and mystery and inspiration in the world around me.
I don't know if art is what makes us human, but I found that art at least showed me what makes me feel alive.
What a beautiful depiction of self-exploration. It would be interesting to hear more about how you get yourself to continue digging in such a state of mind.
I had to think about this for a moment. Finally a lyric from Kanye West came to mind that kept me going day after day. "When it feels like living is harder than dying, for me giving up is way harder than trying". I played this song on repeat, I don't know where I'd be without it.
It wasn't easy, it was hard. Painful and scary and exciting and anxiety inducing and hopeful. I started by forcing myself to do it but the more and more I practiced the easier it became to search for inspiration within myself - like digging a well. At first it was sand and dust and rock; nothing alive. But the deeper I dug I found clay and mud and water and eventually I _learned_ how to find that spring of life within myself, and I could use that water to irrigate the fields and find life and mystery and inspiration in the world around me.
I don't know if art is what makes us human, but I found that art at least showed me what makes me feel alive.
Here's a song I thought of while writing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FeD16vu_qQ