oh you so fucking did not go there

[ysobel]

So I have been reading through The Artist's Way -- not just the bit about the Morning Pages, but it's useful and talking about ways to nurture your inner artist and I'm kind of liking it, and then there is the bit that makes me see red because of the blatant ableism.

Regarding the morning pages thing, rainbow pointed out that insisting on longhand for morning pages is ableist. Which ... it is, but in a kind of sneaky way, especially when I'm coming at it from the perspective of being a writer. A writer writes. So what if one person prefers longhand over typing...

...except then I get to a section that is ... actually kind of offensive. I'm sure nothing was intentional about it, but it basically is a section of the book saying "You cannot be creative enough if you are not fully abled."

Don't believe me?

Creativity requires action, and part of that action must be physical. [...] This is where walking comes in. What we are after here is a moving meditation. [...] Twenty minutes a day is sufficient.

and

Exercise teaches the rewards of process. It teaches the sense of satisfaction over small tasks well done. Jenny, running, extends herself and learns to tap into an unexpected inner resource. Martha would call that power God, but whatever it answers to, exercise seems to call it forth in other circumstances when we mistrust our personal strength. Rather than scotch a creative project when it frustrates us, we learn to move through the difficulty.

and

Exercise is often the going that leads us from stagnation to inspiration, from problem to solution, from self-pity to self-respect. We do learn by going. We learn we are stronger than we thought. [...] Seemingly without effort, our answers come while we swim or stride or ride or run.

Interspersed with all this is a thread about connecting with nature and stuff. And /for people that can do it/, exercise is all well and good.

But.

Firstly, the message I get out of this is that exercise is a necessary tool in the creative toolbox. Which has a p.s. of if you don't exercise, regardless of whether it's won't or /can't/, you're screwing yourself creatively.

And secondly? I have been /wanting some way to exercise for at least ten fucking years goddammit/ -- not just for the health benefits of exercise but for the mythical creatures called 'endorphins' that I have heard about and also for the mindless physicality that will distract my "smart" brain so that my hindbrain can do its thinking.

No doctor or physical therapist I have talked with has been able to come up with any good way for me to exercise. Half of them don't understand why I want it so much.

And godfuckingdammit, this book has in the space of a few paragraphs both pulled at that desire so hard my chest hurts and my throat hurts and I'm crying, and also given the "you will never be a writer" voice a shitton of ammunition it did not have before because if I buy into the rest of the stuff she's saying then I buy intop this and it tells me I am worthless and I so fucking am not damn it all to pieces

I do not even have words to express what I am feeling right now.

Proves her point nicely, doesn't it?

(yes, that last was sarcasm. fuck this whole day already, I'm going to bed.)

Comments

[rainbow]

*pettings and love* <3