My Name Is Jock Stewart LIVE Starship Sunday Social

Donald McGillivray LIVE Starship Sunday Social

Ye Banks And Braes LIVE Starship Sunday Social

Henry Martin LIVE Starship Sunday Social

Who Will Guard The Guardians?

Creativity and neurosis.

1. Aldous Huxley -  a quote perfectly captures the mistake people have around artists, performers especially. 


The challenge usually goes: 

'The urge to perform is a desire for attention. You must have some trauma or wound, something that you are compensating for.'

I’ve had this said to be consistently, from many different people. Stephen Fry talks about this with regard to wordsmithing, and it’s the same with performing. 

2. This is a myth which doesn’t actually cash out: 

- Shakespeare - The very unlikely-ness of a talent like that existing in times when poverty and danger were far greater realities than they are now, shows that it must have been in him, rather than some form of indulgence. 

- My first experience on the stage - singing folk songs at my Auntie’s wedding. I wanted to be up there, I wanted to perform, it was in me and it had to come out. 

- The level of scorn and rejection that you get as an artist proves that it can’t be a narcissistic thing. 

The point is, some people are just born that way. 

3. Creativity is a fundamental feature of humanity

- Everybody is creative, because everybody has an imagination. We have the ability to imagine the unknown, and we have the ability to empathise. 

- Artists, however, are a unique breed. The desire to put yourself out there is not a defect, or a product of trauma. Anyone who tries to use their creativity to compensate for what they lack in themselves is headed for a fall. 

- People fear creativity, especially performers, because they fear the unknown. 


4. All artists must be selfish. But it is not an inward-looking selfishness. It’s the selfishness of a mother. 


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Fear Of A Black Planet - Creativity and neurosis

This week I talk about: 

Nick Broomfield’s new film on Leonard Cohen
The bohemian life and its paradoxes 
Creativity and the muse
Beauty and catalysts of art 
Narcissism and art
Trump and the establishment