No One Here Gets Out Alive
A piece I wrote while on a 73-hour-long 90s grunge listening binge and PubMed reading spree: The duality of creation. Exploring the complex relationship between creativity and mental health.
THINK PEACE
The coming-of-age battle between life and death. Having the ability to end your own life- But, knowing that you can't, or won't, or shouldn't. And so, you don’t- But, you can.
As they say, technically you could bite your finger off like a carrot but your brain won't let you- I think the same concept could apply here.
It might be safe to say everyone has thought about it at least once, the big “S” word, the word you can’t really say, but, sometimes even for a second in time it crosses your mind... On nights when you can’t sleep, or, randomly realizing you have the power to swerve off the side of the bridge when driving to work in the morning.
Maybe you're completely “normal” and don’t think about offing yourself. Still, you might wonder what happens after you die. Does it go completely black? Do you see the light and enter a new life? Does the sky open up and you enter through some big heavenly gates? Maybe you just burn eternally in hell. Whatever happens when this life ends, as humans, we’re all a little curious, morbid, and if you’re lucky you might even be a little bit mad.
As a 90s grunge fan, suicide seems to permeate and even overshadow the community considerably. Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, and Ian Curtis, just to name a few fallen gods and angels.
How does a fan wrap their head around the idea that someone with such an outlet, talent, wealth, admiration, and affluence, can’t overcome the prisons of their mind?
If they can't, who can?
How can someone who finds their voice through the artwork of others be expected to make it out the other side if their heroes can’t?
Is it that these artists are so overly critical of themselves that they reach beyond the realm of true reality and morph into a completely fake reality- the pitfall of hyper-awareness? With that, many say writing songs about addiction, depression, hardships, etc. creates a new reality. A study done in 2023 exploring the relationship between Chris Cornell’s song lyrics and depression says “The risk (of suicide) may be especially elevated among artists who express themselves through the written word”. Although the study concluded the almost obvious, it could begin to bridge the gap between art and science as mental health struggles are very real and very prevalent in the art community.
As an artist using your art as a voice and therapy it could eventually create a world where everything in your mind does become real- or was it already real because you wrote about it? Can these ideas co-exist, as every piece of art is multi-dimensional? Only solidifying the fact that human is human is human. No one is above the prison of their own mind, some of us are lucky to tune into a territory that many can never unlock, but it should never be at the cost of life.
"No One Here Gets Out Alive" -Jim Morrison
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