Mental illness link to art and sex

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Ian Sample, science correspondent

The Guardian, Wednesday 30 November 2005

Article history

To create or to procreate ... Pablo Picasso studies the figure of a woman assembled on the floor of his Vallauris studio in 1953. Photograph: AP

 

ARTISTS
"They are a race completely apart from all other human beings.
Their emotions, all their feelings, their reactions are opposed to so-called "normal" people's sentiments. They are vulnerable and deeply sensitive people, due to their talents, their super-imagination, their knowledge of hidden influences of which we ordinary human beings are not. They are not easy to live with-if you choose to live with them at all, if you have the luck to meet them at all.

Writers, composers, painters-also artists like directors, and actors fall into the same category. They have to be handled with kid-gloves, mentally and physically. All their reactions go to extremes, compared to non-artistic human beings.

As I was lucky enough to meet and love and work for many, many artists, I learned, not without heartbreak and pain, to become a better, more intelligent, respectful and devoted person. No tears were wasted in the process. My tears-not theirs!"

-Unknown. Found on Marilyn Manson's webpage diary/blog 5 or 6 years ago.

 

I've been painfully aware of the most pervasive sorrow in our modern society for quite some time.
However this book called "A Path With Heart" by Jack Kornfield puts it into better words than I ever could. All I ever seem to be able to do when trying to express these sentiments is bitch about "the herd" and "the lemmings" and consumers and how ridiculous they are.
Here goes.

"Our addictions are the compulsively repetitive attachments we use to avoid feeling and to deny the difficulties of our lives. Advertising urges us to keep pace, to keep consuming, smoking, drinking, and craving food, money and sex. Our addictions serve to numb us to what is, to help us avoid our own experience, and with great fanfare our society encourages these addictions..."

This quote is taken from the above book, but the quote itself is from another book: "When Society Becomes an Addict" by Anne Wilson Schaef:
"The best-adjusted person in our society is the person who is not dead and not alive, just numb, a zombie. When you are dead you're not able to do the work of the society. When you are fully alive you are constantly saying "No" to many of the processes of society, the racism, the polluted environment, the nuclear threat, the arms race, drinking unsafe water and eating carcinogenic foods. Thus it is in the interests of our society to promote those things that take the edge off, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly numbed out and zombie-like. In this way, our modern consumer society itself functions as an addict."

Further, Jack Kornfield goes on to say:

"One of our most pervasive addictions is speed. Technological society pushes us to increase the pace of our productivity and the pace of our lives....In a society that almost demands life at double time, speed and addictions numb us to our own experience. In such a society it is almost impossible to settle into our bodies or stay connected with our hearts, let alone connect with one another or the earth where we live. Instead, we find ourselves increasingly isolated and lonely, cut off from one another and the natural web of life. One person in a car, big houses, cellular phones, Walkman (book © 1993) radios clamped to our ears, and a deep loneliness and sense of inner poverty. That is the most pervasive sorrow in our modern society...."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTCSkL78vaA

I am reading the book by that name by Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the legenendary So-Cal rock group The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Totally devouring it because I see so many parallels in the dude's life to mine. Our parents. Our very unusual and very un-innocent young adulthoods. Etc. The guy is completely sober now and also has very similar spiritual insights as mine. This guy has had an AMAZING life and I feel SO compelled to finish his book because I think because of our similarities I may learn some good things from it. The great yogis I so look up to and I'm sure he does too urge those seeking more enlightenment to seek out the wisdom and company of those who are wiser than they. I would love to have this guy at my service for counsel and advice. He is probably one person I could learn things from, because he is in complete understanding of everything I'm going and have gone through.
Anyhow, either way the book will still be a compelling read for anyone, whether you can relate to his life and experiences or not. It is a crazy, unrelenting and candid account of a life lived for hedonistic behavior.

Lilith was the legendary first wife of Adam, biblical Adam, who was left out of the Holy Bible for whatever reason. Legend has it that in the beginning, Lilith and Adam were created by God at the same time, out of dirt, on the 6th day of creation. For that reason, that they were both made from dirt, they were thus EQUALS. It is said that Lilith was a wild, man-domineering woman. One of her common sources of friction with Adam was that when making love he always insisted on being on-top and Lilith did not like this one bit. So after they had a particularly nasty fight about this one day, it is said that Lilith ran away to go live among the Demons, where from their "attentions" she ended up giving birth to many little half Lilith/Half demon babies. Adam lamented to the Lord wishing for a woman companion who was more subservient. And so God created Eve, using Adam's rib, which made her NOT equal to him, and more of the Mother-housekeeper-nourishing type.
Lilith is also in many folklores supposed to be a wicked female demon, who scares children at night and visits men in their sleep and seduces them.

"Lilith/Eve" in that exact spelling form is also, importantly, the title of a VERY BADASS song by the Machines of Loving Grace, and is actually also the first place I ever saw the two names juxtaposed so with only a slash separating them.
So the juxtaposition of the two names in "Lilith/Eve" with a slash, is intended to imply a mixture of both women into one, making a woman who has shades of both ancient wives-one who is more wild, domineering, often the lust object of men until they find that they cannot control her; and another side more like Eve, who is a loving, caring, traditional marriage-type-material of woman, a woman who is subservient and eager to please men by catering to their various *lame* (I kid, you know I love ya boys...) needs without complaint.
So by this name I am meaning to say that I, like most everybody, am a mixture of both the light and the dark- of both ancient archetypal women-similar to the images you may have seen of a silhouette girl with an angel halo next to a girl with horns and devil's tail. I'm the black and the white. I am the angel but I am also having a pretty good demonic streak to me. The Lilith and the Eve. I like to think of myself as a happy medium between these two.
However, since the name "Lilith" does appear before Eve in my "title", does that imply that perhaps I AM a bit MORE LILITH and a bit LESS EVE?? And how many LICKS does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop Lollipop??? Well, lets just say... "the world may never know...."

In the wasteland
on the way to the Red Queen...
it's no wonder our stage clothes
have dreams to be famous.
The trees in the courtyard
are painted in blood,
so I've heard.
She hangs the headless
upside down to drain.

EAT ME, DRINK ME
EAT ME, DRINK ME
This is only a game,
this is only a game

I was invited to
a beheading today.
I thought I was a butterfly
next to your flame.
A rush of panic and
the lock has been raped.
This is only a game,
this is only a game...

But then our star rushes in,
feeling like a child and looking
like a woman...
She has been forecast with an
attempt to kill herself,
but the ending didn't test well.

I was invited to
a beheading today.
I thought I was a butterfly
next to your flame.
A rush of panic and
the lock has been raped.
This is only a game,
this is only a game...

EAT ME, DRINK ME
EAT ME, DRINK ME
This is only a game,
this is only a game.

But then our star rushes in,
feeling like a child and looking
like a woman...
She has been forecast with an
attempt to kill herself,
but the ending didn't test well.

So now I'm picking my skin
and my scales.
I see my horror
mirrored in the sundown
of your blank stare.
I see my horror
mirrored in the
sundown of your
blank stare.

EAT ME, DRINK ME
EAT ME, DRINK ME
This is only a game,
this is only a game.

You have eyes that
Lead me on
And a body that
Shows me death
Your lips look like they were made
For something else but
They just suck my breath
I want your pain
To taste why you're ashamed
And I know you're not just what you say to me
And I'm not the only moment you're made of

You're so sudden and sweet
All legs, knuckle, knees
Head's blown clean off
Your mouth's paid off
F**k me 'til we know it's unsafe
And we'll paint
Over the evidence

I want you wanting me
I want what I see in your eyes
So give me something to be scared of
Don't give me something to satisfy

You're so sudden and sweet
All legs, knuckle, knees
Head's blown clean off
Your mouth's paid off
F**k me 'til we know it's unsafe
And we'll paint
Over the evidence

I want your pain
To taste why you're ashamed
And I know you're not just what you say to me
And I'm not the only moment you're made of

You're so sudden and sweet
All legs, knuckle, knees
Head's blown clean off
Your mouth's paid off
F**k me 'til we know it's unsafe
And we'll paint
Over the evidence

Ah, well, now that my vacation is over (which I still must write about) it's time for little miss Chelsea Lynn to get back to work. Was thinking of doing the same working from home gig again that I did last year, but I think I really want to be a bartender. When I work from home I feel like such a hermit, locked up in the house all day working, and when work is over too tired to go out! That's ridiculous I am too young for that! As a bartender I would be out meeting and talking to people again, and I think I would be darn good at it. I got me some great customer service skills from working at home depot for 4 1/2 years! No customers can make me loose my cool, ever, these days.

I have a new bed being delivered Friday! It's SO romantic. Black metal four poster with rails connecting the tops of the posts! YES! And it's a queen...I've never had a real bed before or a queen bed. Actually I think this pic I just found on Mancini's website is the actual same bed that I got:



Aw shit!

Anyway in other news, I am also thinking of starting AIKIDO lessons. I kicked so much ass in Tae Kwan Do when I was a kid (about 8 years old) that on my first test for a belt, my teacher skipped me one belt to the next higher up belt, while my sister and my mother just got their first belts. So, after that, they had to call me "Sir" in class for the rest of our lessons cause I was always 1 belt ahead of them. Oh yea, I enjoyed that thoroughly.

Also I am hoping to start working on producing this summer, some small random art goodies to begin my inventory of things I've made that I want to begin selling. Selling at arts & crafts festivals and the like, and if it looks like people like my stuff enough I may one day explore selling them online too.

Anyway peace be with you, I am sleepy now....This concludes the "Chelsea Update" for July 11, 2007.