Great Pain

They say that great art comes from great pain. If that's true, I'd like to know how these artists keep themselves upright long enough to create anything in spite of said great pain, let alone something others might consider great. My great pain has me in a crumpled heap. Always mentally and emotionally, but often physically too. The last thing I feel capable of is creating art worthy of sharing with the world.

And yet.

Here I am. I suppose that "creating" technically applies to what's happening here, but my emphasis tends to be on the great pain as opposed to the great art. I would be lying if I said that I didn't have hopes and dreams for this, but as a general rule, hopes and dreams feel more like a "someday" thing to me as of late. So for now, let's just call this what it is: a start.

So far, my great pain has not inspired me to channel whatever creative energy is lurking within me. Perhaps that will change. I hope it does. For now, though, my great pain is doing a stand-up job of making itself known, every minute of every day. As one of my all-time favorite authors writes, "Pain demands to be felt." No five words have ever felt truer to me than these. However, most of the time, there isn't any verbiage (in the English language, anyway) that could adequately describe what I'm feeling. Assigning words makes it feel smaller than it is. Containable. Words don't even begin to do it justice.

And yet.

Here I am, dedicating a blog to the seemingly indescribable. Is that ridiculous? Maybe. Is it 1:04 in the morning? Yes. Yes, it is. I'm not entirely sure how or where this will go. Maybe poorly and nowhere, but maybe great and somewhere important. I don't have anything to lose, so I'm going for it. Shooting for the moon, if you will.

Maybe that in itself qualifies as great art.