"I was outraged a number of years ago to read a book by an eminent Freudian analyst whose theory was that all artists are neurotic, psychotic, sado/masochists, Peeping Toms; that not one is normal.
At this moment I do not know why it bothered me so. He means one thing by his labels; I would call it something quite different; but there is no denying that the artist is someone who discovers rainbow answers in the darkness, and then rushes to canvas or paper. An artist is someone who cannot rest, who can never rest as long as there is one suffering creature in this world. Along with Plato's divine madness there is also divine discontent., a longing to find the melody in the discords of chaos, the rhyme in the cacophony, the surprised smile in time of stress or strain.
It is not that what is is not enough for it is; it is that what is had been disarranged, and is crying out to be put in place. Perhaps the artist longs to sleep well every night, to eat anything without indigestion; to feel no moral qualms: to turn off the television news and make a bologna sandwich after seeing the devastation and death caused by famine and draught and earthquake and flood. But the artist cannot manage this normalcy. Vision keeps breaking through, and must find means of expression."
Rather pertinent to what I was just talking about, I hope I can be that kind of artist.
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