Why we need artists to die young and suffer

Why we exploit artists

29-06-2007

Do you think it is a coincidence that many talented artists die early, rely on drugs and are in deep psychological problems?

Well I am not saying all of them are like that. But really the true artists the true geniuses the people, musicians artists writers, they have a tendency to be unstable than most of us.

Why is that?
I am not saying this is the all mighty truth of the matter, but here is my theory.
I think we are using artists to indirectly experience the true depth of emotions thoughts and feelings without having to go there ourselves.
What does this mean?

It means that most of us, to survive everyday life, to live, to put the bread on the table, and not struggle in a corner hiding ourselves, we block most of our emotions and thoughts away to keep to the minimum. Our society makes it so that it is a virtue to keep a balance of things. To not get carried away, may it be happiness, sadness, madness or any other emotions and feelings one can and do get. When we do feel that the balance of emotions have been broken then we resort to medicine, vacation, therapy etc. We are scared of being in a state where one cannot control one’s emotions. For the emotional states to take hold of oneself.
On the other hand, we long for these emotions as well. We are put in a conflict where one must block and rid of emotions as much as possible to deal with daily routines and function as a member of society, while our instinct craves and needs the emotional rush to make us feel alive.

What is our solution, we sometimes go in a fit of many emotions, but better yet, we use the indirect method of experiencing a certain feeling or flow or emotions through the product of others' emotions and feelings. - Which is music, art, novels, movies, etc.

Let me give you an example, when you listen to Billie Holiday, one feels the sorrow, or the blues intricate within her voice. We can experience the mood Billie was in just through listening to her songs. Her voice makes us feel what she felt. ( I wish my vocabulary was better than this, because I am not finding the right words to explain myself). However, we also can get out of it. Get back to our tranquil state of things in the equilibrium. We can leave the mood when the song ends. However, Lady Day to produce what she did, she was in a state which at the end killed her. Under the influence of drugs and substance abuse.

Although many believe that musicians should live the stereotype life of substance abuse and constant instability, but I think we actually need them to do so, because what these drugs to is exactly push them to an extreme state of emotions, which enable them - not all of them but some- to produce what enable us to just taste or have a glimpse of what is possible.
We ourselves are too scared to do so for the fear of not being able to come back to the balance of things again, however, we want to experience them.
This is why we are in a sense in need of these fragile emotionally sensitive people to give us their experiences in notes, voices etc. Some times we are exploiting them.
We are the ones who are encouraging them to shoot up the crack inside their systems- encouraging them to really go towards the edge so they can come back and tell us what is there. While the rest of us just wallow near the edge dipping our toes.