Imagination

Female genital mutilation

Today I read that in experiments, people with Schizophrenia have less imagination than controls. That doesn’t surprise me judging from personal experience. I would not count myself as very in tune with my creativity. Things with me tend to follow a more logical pathway. I met some artists this weekend just gone at an open studios event and it struck me how much more instinctual they were in their approach to life.

My art is worked very hard whereas to them it seems to come naturally. A while ago I realised that my process was mechanical: I record as much as I can in writing and then I review what I have written; noticing patterns, motifs and symbols. I then mould these things into my art work.

I have always been capable at drawing. I have been doing it all my life and I have very few inhibitions when it comes to putting pen to paper. I have experimented and found my own rhythm so it is now almost second nature to me.

I do not envy these instinctual artists because I am who I am; I didn’t choose to be me so why make excuses or pretend to be something I am not; like men feeling embarrassed in the shower at the gym. When I was younger I would look at different people and I’d think “I will be like them”, as though it is possible to fundamentally change who you are.

There may be some leeway I guess; people do change over time as new connections are formed in the brain. Or there are drastic cases of brain damage when an individual can become a completely different person.

I am a particular collection of thoughts. I feel as though I am a being amid a cloud of thoughts; picking them out consciously but I think that is an illusion. There is no ‘me’, there is only the cloud of thoughts that believes it self to be a person.