Member-only story
The Unsatiated Few
They become our artists
The ascetic life is appealing to me. As a person who is constantly confounded by life’s daily rituals, to live simply and to have a constant single-tracked routine is one that I dream of. But unfortunately, I also dream of other lives. One where I am not entrapped by the corner of life I have accidentally painted myself into.
As I come into myself late into the evenings, where the waters of my brain are still enough to see through, I am forced to come face to face with the ancient frustrations that have stared into the depths of humanity since the awareness of mortality had reached the shores of the psyche.
It is hard to not be fearful when that piercing glare reaches through us past our skin, almost threatening the fabric of our very being. It questions everything, including the validity of our work, its purpose, while trying to stay afloat while the waters of our own despair rise. Are we powerless to stop it?
What is art? Can art be birthed into this mental landscape? A person trapped within the mind of someone who is not fully allowed to be herself, and the societal shackles are still grating at her wrists. I am not mentally free, and yet, my mind finds ways to seep through the gates that bar me from true expression. It must get out somehow. It is an act of self-preservation more than it is…
