Van Gogh Blues

Last week, I introduced the topic of “meaningfulness” as it relates to artists and depression.

Today, I want to review and reinforce a few ideas about finding, making, and maintaining meaning, on a personal level. Looking over this list, I’m surprised that I didn’t realize so much of this earlier.

On the general size and shape of meaning:

• Meaning doesn’t come in just the extra grande sized servings; there are also little nibbles of meaning (popcorn purposes?). These bite-sized portions are functional and productive. I don’t have to find a purpose that gives meaning to my entire life…. just a meaning for why I’m doing this altered-book page, or this blog post, this painting, or this load of dishes.
• Meaningfulness doesnt have to be forever. It can be meaning for this afternoon, for a week, for a year. I may find a temporary meaning in discovering meaning. I may find temporary meaning in becoming organized.
• Meaningfulness doesn’t have to be worthy, by anyone else’s standards, or even mine, for that matter. A purpose doesn’t have to be altruistic, it doesn’t have to be lofty or idealistic or “for the common good”. If making a million dollars is meaningful for me… that’s a perfectly decent motivation, inspite of the mutters about “sell out!” that may come.

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Book Review: The Van Gogh Blues

Vincent Van Gogh is the poster child for the depressed, unstable artist, and a strong argument for the correlation between a troubled soul and brilliant creativity.

I refuse to believe that being creative means I’m doomed to a life of mental disorders. When a recent mood-funk sent me reeling, I set out on a search for information, ran across psychotherapist Eric Maisel’s work — and stumbled into one of those rare aHa! moments.

In The Van Gogh Blues, Maisel’s underlying theme is that creative-types are in the business of making meaning.

It’s what we do. We connect the dots from this to that, and draw lines between apparently random observations, until they mean* something. Then we invest and reveal the meaning to others in tangible forms: dance, music, words, and imagery.

So artists are driven by the need to express meaning - and when we loose that any sense of meaning in a project (or in our lives) we fall into what Maisel calls “a meaning crisis” (which seems to have a lot in common with a crisis of faith) Any number of things can cause a crisis in meaning; a goal that has been met, a change in life circumstance, a negative thought or doubt that springs seemingly out of nowhere and runs amok. But whatever the cause, if we don’t recover or reinvest a sense of meaning into our work and lives, depression, anxiety, addictions and a variety of other ills can take over. Only recovering a new sense of meaning will pull us out of it - at least that’s the theory and goal of Maisel’s “Meaning Therapy” [click to continue...]