in constant pursuit

Creation is such a powerful drug. When you get in a rhythm and start drawing or writing and the perspective works and the rhymes are sharp and crisp – when you really get going and that primal, pulsatile energy starts beaming through your center and out from your fingertips and you feel overcome by some tremendous elation, like when you breathe in deeply and hold a smile – this is creation at its most potent, and most wonderful, effect. It is so comforting, so elegant: in that one moment you feel as if you have accomplished something singularly great.

But as with any drug the feeling doesn’t last, and pretty soon what you thought was great and liberating seems – separate from the act of creating – simple, and burdened by banality. And you crash. And you hit lows, when nothing seems to rhyme anymore; when the lead crumbles under a gentle pressure. And sometimes the block lasts for a long while and you do nothing new, and it weighs heavy on your mind the thought of how it could feel. It is an artistic, substance-induced depression of sorts.

I have to think many artists feel this way, and that I am not alone in this sentiment. We are tormented by our art – drawn, perhaps subconsciously, toward a need to feel that rush one more time. And so we push and try always to create: because, in many ways, we only – in all the living that we do – feel fully alive when we are so doing. And we push and try often prematurely, when we are not ready or not properly equipped to handle the consequences.

At least that's how I see it. Maybe I am wrong – maybe this is just a weakness in my character. I don’t know.

But if ever I seem moody, or downtrodden – when none of the whales seem worth hunting – this, perhaps, is the reason why.