On Writing When You're Not Sad.

It's a frustrating thing to be happy — and it seems to infect most people. There's this inkling feeling that it won't last. It's painted best in Robert Frost's poem,  "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

My best writing, or at least, the writing that I connect to most emotionally I write when I'm so sad. That's an interesting concept, too, that in my mind, best equals emotional. When I have too many feelings welling up inside me I can't help but emit them through writing, through performing, through singing. I cannot help myself. Perhaps it's the notion of something good must come from this pain; I have to create something beautiful, something real, something heartfelt to make this moment have more meaning than just wallowing alone in my: "I am hurt. It hurts. It will pass."

But, why, why can't the same be said when I'm happy? Why is it harder for me to express my joy creatively? Is it the distraction of how happy I am, I don't want to reflect on it for fear that it will dissipate before me? There are too many questions.

Periodically I look back on this blog so I can see who I am or was throughout the years. I have often noticed the amount of writing I did or didn't do during years of hardship and during times of happiness. I can so directly see the correlation between my writing and my relationships. At the start of 2010 I wrote a lot. Not coincidentally, my longest relationship ended. And, then the Fall of 2010 happened, my writing slowed to a trickle — I was in a new relationship. Flash to 2012, I wrote a ton again. That was a hugely difficult year full of car accidents, breakups, job transitioning — the gambit. And then again my writing picked up as I picked up and moved to LA. Spring of 2014 happened and again, a flood. It's frustrating to know how much my writing is a reflection of my emotional state. I love what I write when I am sad. I don't love being sad, though; and I don't want to manufacture emotion. I can't anyway. I've tried.

But even right now, as my life is on an upswing, I am all smiles, yet full of lackluster uninspired stories. I have people in my life I'm excited to see, and that are excited to see me. I have parents that love me, that call me unexpectedly, that fly across the country to spend time with me. I have siblings that are kind, that go out of their way. And while it's not as if we don't carry our baggage or throw one another under the bus on occasion, those moments pale in comparison to how my throat chokes up when I think of what my life would be like if they didn't love me like they do.

So, here I am, waiting for it all to fall apart so I can write a heartfelt blog post, script, poem, song, etc.

NO!

That Frost poem always left me feeling so negative. Now though, I'm attempting to grasp how, yes, things fade, but other things take their place. When a flower blooms and dies, in a few weeks or days, or whatever, time happens, and a new bloom takes its place. Life will always be up and down.

That's comforting.

But God, is it tiring to have all those feelings and be writing and emitting so much. It has to stop. There has to be respite from it. So many writers (comedians, screenwriters, novelists, etc) get their material from things they're pissed about, things that have hurt them, or how they have been wronged. It can soften the blow, or cause you to relive it. You just have to know from where it's coming and to where it's leading you. And sometimes, just sometimes it's better to look at the world without a critical eye.

It's too taxing on your soul otherwise.