Art, Pornography, and the Soul

Otto Rank said (who was a part of Freud's inner circle during the formative days of modern psychology), "all neurosis is the result of the repressed artist". Rank believed that for a human being to be healthy and whole, they had to live a creative life; they had to live as an artist and keep the creative energy and spirit flowing though them. He viewed creativity as the life force that kept life in the body. Creativity and life were one and the same. To use theological language, the creative energy in a person is the same creative force that created everything; the creative energy in you is God. Rank was adamant that neurosis was the direct result of separating one's self from the creative flow.

Except for contemporary times, all human beings were artists. They had to be to survive. They made their tools, their clothes, their furniture, their homes, their toys, their cookware, canned their own vegetables, smoked their own meats, made their musical instruments - all of life was their art. Also, before the advent of radio/television/computers everyone was a performer. The front porch or the campfire was a stage and everyone was a singer, a musician, a dancer, a story teller. All God's children were artists and lived in and from the flow of creativity.

The development of modern commerce and trade started the process of pulling us away from creativity. We no longer had to create. We could just go and buy our tools, our clothes, and our furniture. So we stopped making things. The entertainment/sports industrial complex provided us with super stars so that we would no longer be entertainers and players. We would watch the professionals thus becoming a culture of spectators; forfeiting the creative energy of the universe, no longer living except vicariously through the pros. Now we watch someone play, we watch someone dance, we observe and usually it is not even in person or real life. We stare like pathetic, hypnotized subjects drooling over the gods of a two dimensional electronic projection.

If Otto Rank is correct, much of the despair and depression in our culture could be eradicated if we could figure out how to re-enter the creative energy of the universe; if we all lived in and claimed our identity as artist; if we could understand that God and creativity are one and the same; that art/creating is a spiritual practice; it is a way of praying or meditating.

Allow me to provide a few examples to illustrate just how removed we have become from the real thing.

- Rather than create, taste, smell and see real, wonderful food, we watch the Food Network.

- Rather than actually making things, we watch the DIY "Do It Yourself" Network (funny if you think about it).

- Rather than making love (see, if it's something you make or create - it's art) the culture spends billions of dollars a year and hours at the time watching a two dimensional projection of someone else making love. What makes this so pitiful is how often there is a very real human being probably in a another part of the same house. Silly humans.

We can turn this around. We can reclaim our identity as artist. Sing. Dance. Build. Play. Cook. Write. Paint. Make love. Create. And guess what, the important thing is not the result of the finished piece. The important thing is the doing of the piece. The act of placing yourself and your life in the divine flow of creative energy. Art is meditation. Art is medication.