Loneliness and Creativity

Loneliness and Creativity:

A most unpleasant feeling. Since we are, biologically, evolutionary descendants of social animals, animals with a broad spectrum of social interaction who gain a better survival chance by acting together as a group, we tend to feel uncomfortable when we are alone, when we are not in the assumed save proximity of our fellow humans.

Nevertheless there is a loneliness which occurs even when we are within a group of people. This loneliness stems from a feeling of being not understood, not accepted, of not being able to communicate meaningfully. This kind of loneliness is found often in artistic people who endure their occasional bouts of loneliness and give expression to this feeling in their art, in painting, in music, in film, in literature. For regardless how and on what grounds this lonely feeling overcomes us, it almost always leads to a sort of restlessness which then culminates in artistic expression. By nature the artist is believed to possess a greater sensibility, a weaker shield against the imponderability and the tempests of life. And to this heightened sensibility we own some of the best artworks, it is precisely the transmutation of loneliness into connection with the universal human experience that makes great art, an art in which is still felt a connection with the innermost feeling of what is a human existence. 

This kind of art moves us far more, on an emotional level, than intellectualized, theoretical, conceptualized installations and social art projects. Mind you, those are absolutely necessary, too. We do need them to point out societal drawbacks or look afresh on long established, and therefore taken for granted, behavior patterns, social interactions or ideas of what is good and what is bad. But, perhaps from their very nature, they tend to be lacking in emotional transport. 

What most moves us comes from the inner core of feeling, our limbic system, not the intellect.

Loneliness, this lonely silence, this solitary state of mind, this separeteness from daily life, as hard it is to endure and as miserable it sometimes makes us, offers also a great chance for finding back to our innermost self. Loneliness is indispensable, inseparable from our creative impulse.


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