Stop fearing your negative emotions and start using them as weapons for beauty.
For the Angry, the Lonely, the Sad, and the Yearning. This is for you.
The most powerful art I’ve experienced have made me feel dark things.
Emotions many children are taught to shy away from. Emotions framed in barbed wire and softened with the undercurrents of love, curiosity, and growth. Emotions disgraced for what they cause, for most people are afraid of pain and the phantom temporary damage these emotions allow. Emotions labeled as gender-specific weaknesses (e.g. young men taught to never show their tears).
You might be that child.
This letter is for those of you who have a growing storm within you.
You have anger. You have sadness. You have depression. You have ebbs and flows of states of mind and spirit that chain you to the past, instead of allowing you to wield them as weapons for the future.
Be honest with yourself, when I ask you this:
Have you ever truly experienced anything worthwhile without suffering? Without so-called “negative” emotions? Without the dark energies of anger, sadness, rejection, loneliness, and beyond?
The answer is not as complex as you think, and it’s absolutely not as simple as you might expect. It’s an underlying truth that most humans know, but don’t want to admit, because of their various individual backgrounds and experiences.
When you feel overcome with these emotions, there’s a lesson to be found. You just have to turn inward.
I remember when my first therapist instructed me to view Anxiety as someone sitting on my shoulder, rather than a distant force.
Instead of trying to push Anxiety away, I was told to see her as an extension of me, asking to be acknowledged. Strangely enough, listening to the part of me that was dominated by the Internal Anxiety Monster introduced a palate-cleanser-level taste of freedom that I hadn’t yet experienced—without medication.
However, this took me down a path of constant mental warfare.
I was becoming so hyper-aware of my Dark Emotions as they stared at me, longed for my attention, and clawed at my chest with greedy little fingers, that I felt powerless. I was watching from within the deep Abyss of my mind and soul, as these Dark Emotions began to unfold wings, sprout talons, grow long, gnashing fangs, and turn their frozen gargoyle heads to glare, assess, and challenge me.
What I didn’t understand while charging headfirst into the throes of Dark Emotions, was that they were not as simple as they appeared.
They were binary; a symbiotic relationship between goodness and badness that fed into one another, and could easily dominate the other if you’re not paying attention.
You’re not defined by what you feel. You’re defined by what you do with what you feel.
Anxiety punished me with ulcers, and gifted me awareness. Sadness punished me with a crippled sense of self, and gifted me the relief of tears. Depression punished me with numbness, and gifted me clarity. Heartbreak punished me with self-deprecation, and gifted me resilience. Fear punished me with isolation, and gifted me strength.
You are designed as well from a constantly shifting mosaic of memories, experiences, dreams, and feelings that have brought you to where you are today.
Every Dark Emotion mirrors the Light. Every Dark Emotion bears a gift. It is your responsibility as a human to recognize where those Dark Emotions are festering, and how you can shape them into weapons of Expression.
If you don’t hold yourself accountable, you end up getting locked in this toxic whirlwind of only the detrimental side of each Dark Emotion. Instead of experiencing the gifts, you only experience the punishment.
You also must be very careful that you don’t become addicted to these Dark Emotions. Each one—from Jealousy and Envy to Greed and Lust—can transform into glamorous vampires who wear your insecurities as their cloaks. They will tempt you with their beauty, lure you in with their promises, and suck on the blood of your Independence, Identity, and Potential while you are none the wiser.
You’ll see those who are addicted quite easily. Once you see it within yourself, it’s impossible not to notice these abominations sap the life force out of innocent people who’s greatest crime was committed against themselves.
To avoid this, you have to recognize the Dark Emotions. Not suppress, but accept. It takes practice, and it’s a scary thing to do, but it’s absolutely necessary if you want to confront your inner Demons and find a path towards Self-Awareness.
I can’t explain to you how this feels other than you simply know that something’s changed.
You fear your Dark Emotions less. You start to see the beauty they deliver alongside the pain. You start to view the world in a different light, balanced between fractals of shadows dancing on glass.
Once you realize that you’re not defined by your emotions—the Dark, and the Light—you start to recognize the many different ways you can utilize them.
This is why, my anonymous friend, you must create.
The most beautiful art ever created was forged in dark, frightening places. The heart. The soul. The mind. There is no reason that you can’t also wield these Dark Emotions as your paintbrush.
This is not a letter about beauty and art, but at the same time, it is. In the same breath, actually, it’s a letter about every unspoken element of beauty and art; the relationship that defies all time, emotion, and identity. Beauty and art no know true beginning and end, and they become real for those who pursue them.
Your Dark Emotions can (and should) be your most powerful paintbrushes.
Two weeks ago, I was knee-deep in writing for my debut novel. It was a passage I was looking forward to, but I hadn’t realized how personal the connection was between myself and the words on the page, until certain emotions unfolded within the scene that would not have existed if I didn’t know what those specific Dark Emotions felt like.
It was grueling, freeing, and wonderful to write. My heart shattered into pieces while letting the images flow. It pieced itself back together within the same session. Not because the characters were no longer suffering, but because I found a way to illustrate their suffering in a way that illuminated my own.
The tears I shed after writing that day were borne from this mutual understanding I had between the body of work, the characters, and I.
What exists within the pages of this book wouldn’t exist at all if I hadn’t poured everything into it. If I had only known what Light Emotions felt like, I wouldn’t have been able to create something so unsettling, uncomfortable, and raw to write.
Dark Emotions create perspective. They allow you to view the world through a more complex lens. Instead if viewing myself as a victim, I work every day to channel those Dark Emotions into weapons and instruments of creation that can help guide others to states of being and action that inspire them, too.
If you choose not to create, you become meaningless through inaction, ignorance, and irresponsibility. Your lack of creation leads you to a painfully painless end, and you have no one to blame but yourself.
This is a universal law that not all humans understand yet, but it’s bred into your DNA. It’s part of who you are. This is an inescapable fact that even the most stubborn of people need to learn to accept if they want to live their one life meaningfully. If you were not a Creator, you would have no purpose. Simple.
But, too many humans are frightened of experiencing Dark Emotions.
They would rather suppress and ignore them, instead of wielding them for a greater message, a greater good. There’s untapped potential everywhere, from memories of pain and anguish, to landscapes of scars both of the flesh and of the mind.
You must learn to embrace the dark and the light in order to create art that embodies all dimensions—whether you’re building a business, writing a book, painting a portrait, or crafting languages.
The next time you feel these Dark Emotions…
Listen to them. Find where they lurk. See how you can shape those frightened pieces of you into something truly beautiful, and thought-provoking. Ask the questions you want to ask through your weapon of choice, be it the chisel, the paintbrush, the pencil, or beyond. Confront. Create. Distribute.
This is why the most astonishing portraits make us uncomfortable, and curious. Why sculptures from the masters make us tremble in awe, and fear. Why films crafted from bare bones, anguish, and yearning make us sympathize through screams and tears. Why books instill imagery and thoughts of the human condition in raw, confronting ways, and make us long to understand why.
I promise you this:
The most beautiful art you create—and witness—will always be a product of obeying your emotional, intellectual, and spiritual chaos.
It’s taken me a long time to be grateful for my pains.
It’s taken even longer to recognize those pains came with gifts.
My one hope is this letter brought you some clarity around what you must do with and for your Dark Emotions, so they can build art that captures the true reflection of you within every fragment and color.
Sad, Angry, Lonely, and all.
- Taylor