I've been thinking about and reflecting on my various creative processes and pursuits lately, and I started to notice a bit of a pattern. I find my strengths to be in exploring sadness and pain (emotional). This doesn't necessarily extend to what I consume in creative fields and there are, of course, exceptions, but I find that I draw upon darker emotions most, in my lyrics, my dancing, etc.

I have never liked my "happy" songs. I have never felt particularly drawn or emotionally connected to happy or fun dances (perhaps why I'm so terrible at jazz and hip hop). I write characters struggling with "darkness." I prefer ballads, and I listen to what others consider to be "depressing" music, even--or perhaps especially--when I'm sad.

And only now am I really digging into why this may be. At first I thought it was because for a long time, I felt very withdrawn and inside of myself when I struggled socially in school before college. Also, writing was my form of therapy, of getting out my frustrations and sadness and anger. Then, I started realizing that perhaps for a long time, I saw the dark and heavy stuff as being more nuanced and/or complex. But now I see that happiness and joy are equally complex and varied emotions. Additionally, it's not just "happiness" that I struggle with in my art. I struggle with how to portray nostalgia or the way memory has a way of making hard times seem less terrible in retrospect, even as you know how hard it was. There are certain sadnesses I still struggle to write about, too.

I think there's more to it and that it goes deeper, both inside myself and also in regards to how we expect to consume things and how we view certain emotions. Part of my connection to pain and sadness in the arts comes from the ways in which I felt they portrayed so much of my experiences growing up, things I've spent very little time telling people about or sharing with others in my own art. It made me feel understood at times when I felt so very alone. I connected with those emotions in what I consumed creatively, so it shaped my own creative journey.

When I dance or choreograph, or when I listen to music, sadness and pain seem so much more tangible to feel and express--something grounded deep in my bones. When I reach as if something's pushing me or holding me back, it feels real. I can tap into deeply held sadness and pain that I felt growing up. The emotions written on my face are real, and I know how to make it nuanced, how to differentiate emotions and movements. On the other hand, all of my smiles feel exactly the same. I don't seem to connect to upbeat music the same way, and it makes me move and emote superficially. I struggle to differentiate dynamics in the movement or in the music, and it doesn't feel real to me or to the audience.

Real happiness, real laughs. I have the most amazing friends.

I don't want to glorify the dark emotions the way it can sometimes be romanticized in art. They are real and deeply felt, but I think my thoughts are symptomatic of something larger too. Of how we sometimes see happy, smiling people as superficial or fake. Of how we (and art) often portray happiness as a mask rather than something also deeply felt. Happiness is portrayed as being a certain thing, but we don't usually explore what that means or how that feels or how one experience of happiness and/or joy differs from another. We portray happiness as being carefree, as being free, as surpassing an obstacle or reaching a goal. But we rarely portray the small moments. We rarely look at how happiness can be mixed with other emotions. We don't tend to explore the nuance in happiness the way we do sadness. How does happiness and relief over a good test score differ from being with friends? And how does this differ from the larger, deeply felt happiness and contentment that is more encompassing? How does it differ from feeling proud and happy for a friend's success?  Your own success? Even more, we rarely look at how happiness and sadness can reside together and share space--how we can be both at once. We think of strength through the lens of adversity and perseverance, but what does it look like when we're happy? Sure, we have an understanding of feelings like nostalgia and bittersweet, but there's so much more. Feelings that perhaps we don't have words for.

We think of happiness as a cliche in our art. Sure, in things such as writing, you usually need some kind of struggle and conflict. But I've read amazing books exploring different facets of sadness and similar. Rarely do you ever have a fiction novel that explores different facets of happiness.

And all of the above discussion is solely around happiness and sadness as emotions and feelings. When we add other feelings, it becomes even more complex. There are so many to be explored and to express. Ones that I'm not sure how to express creatively or to even talk about. It's like I cannot find the right words or movements or sounds. Feelings are not dichotomous, but sometimes I worry that I make it seem like they are when I am creating. How do you express some of the complicated thoughts and threads in your mind? How do you ensure and build up nuance in your work?

Maybe this is what keeps me from moving forward in my craft. I feel like sometimes I'm running out of different ways to write about sadness in my lyrics. But I'll try to write something happy, and it just feels so fake, so cheesy, and I hate it. Maybe I just haven't found the right way yet. But why is it that I'm so drawn to this and not to something else? Why do I find happy things to be fake or cliche or stereotypical? Perhaps some of it is the romanticization of struggle and pain in art. I don't want to think I'm adding to that.

Because there's so much nuance in all feelings, and we should aim to explore those too, to capture the full range of human emotion and experiences. So I will strive to do better. To be more nuanced, to experience more nuance, to explore more nuance. To write the stuff I hate or struggle with so that I can improve. To analyze my joyous writing the way I do my other writing, trying to unpack my existing prejudices. To keep practicing and creating, whether through writing or dance or music. I will strive to be better, and I hope all artists will too.

Would you guess that this photo was taken after one of the hardest summers of my life? Or that I would fall into one of my worst periods of depression shortly afterwards?