A Prayer For The Bound

Here's the thing about addiction. There is a moment, this beautifully sweet and fleeting instant in time, there in the throes of your chosen poison, when all the pain, and the stress, and the worry, just flow out of you. In that moment you are at peace, you are free, truly free, free from all the human bullshit that piles on top of you day after day after day. You rise above all of it and see it for what it truly is: an absurd and wonderfully pointless dance on the edge of oblivion. From the day you find that place you will spend the rest of your life trying to get back there. That is the monkey on your back. That is the dragon you chase.

The name of my dragon is "Story". Anyone who makes anything will tell you about how “that moment” manifests itself in the act of creation. Be you writer, or painter, or dancer, or singer, or carpenter, it doesn't matter. You come to a place where you are swept away in the flow of the work, the momentum of the thing takes over, and everything becomes effortless. In that moment you are a god, Lord of Creation, breathing whole universes into existence through the sheer force of your own will. Whatever you wish to be... Will Be. There is no feeling in the world like that. Forget drugs, forget sex, forget love, forget all of it. That is the place we are always trying to get to, that is the dragon we chase. Is it any wonder that artist have driven themselves mad in pursuit of their vision? Because the bittersweet truth is, in that moment, you are at the mercy of a force greater than yourself, you feel as though something is moving through you, and you are just a willing puppet, dancing on the end of the its strings. Can you see how these seemingly mad women and men were caught in grip of something beyond their control?  Though we may be gods in our own worlds, in truth we are but slaves; thralls to our master Art.

Spare a thought then for the artists. We have committed ourselves to enriching your lives by choosing a life of bondage. The demons that haunt us are legion and they never sleep. We will give to you all that we have, bleeding ourselves to the brink of collapse if only to see you smile, or scream, or laugh, or weep. We reach out to you, searching for an all too brief connection, a place where our hearts can touch yours, and share with you a piece of ourselves.