 Oh Muses upon Mount Helicon, answer me this, why are there so few videos about art and mental health on YouTube? I know, I don't expect an art and mental health video to be as big as a success as your hundredth, how to make a living as an artist on YouTube, but you know, it might just be as important even to reaching that same goal. As an artist diagnosed with bipolar, I am biased, but I do think you have to be a little bit crazy to make art in a world like this, and I'm not just talking about the fun crazy. We should not romanticize the myth of the mad artist, but we can still acknowledge that for a lot of us there is some sort of connection, whether that stems from artists like me suffering mental disorders, from the world and our business exposing us to risks for things like burnout and depression, or even, maybe there's something underlying. Yet we speak about mental health in hushed tones, or as that one time thing, that one time I had depression and how I got over it, how I beat burnout and got my spark back once and for all. And when I see an artist posting their great plan to defeat burnout or beat the art block, I try to look back in their video archive and if they've been around long enough, I tend to find it there. One year back, three years back, even five years back, another video almost identical about how they beat that exact same thing for the final time. Again, this might be my bipolar bias, but I think the reason is that creativity might just be cyclical. Society being in some sense cyclical also explains why, over the years as I talked publicly about my experiences being bipolar, I get contacted by so many different artists. Some of them are among the greatest artists I know, others, absolute hobbyists and beginners. Some of them saying I inspire them to talk more about their own struggles. Some of them saying they can't speak about it publicly, but they can relate. Some of the artists I talk to about this are diagnosed by polar, some are undiagnosed, some suffer depression, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, autism, anxiety, PTSD, often it's a mix. But even more importantly, many artists that contact me do not suffer any mental health disorders. They're as close to healthy as anyone, yet the feedback I get is consistently that they can relate to what I'm talking about. But my methods for managing my bipolar disorder is relevant to them managing their artistic day-to-day practice. And sure, there's a huge selection bias here, very few people would contact someone just to say, hey you, your advice is completely irrelevant to me. But it is still interesting to ponder possible reasons why someone without bipolar disorder would find any sort of use in the experiences of someone struggling with bipolar. Not only might the lessons learned by an artist suffering mental health disorders be relevant far beyond their diagnosis, but I also believe a lot of the struggles of mentally healthy artists also become more relevant when looked at from a mental health perspective. Being good art is mentally taxing, something that can easily be made worse by the business of making art, by the cycles of success and failure, and not the least by trying to find our way through the labyrinthine hellscape of social media and surveillance capitalism. In this video I want to focus on how art and mental health is linked on a fundamental level by examining two different myths that relate to art. In the hope that by some weird magic that will convince other artists to be more open about their own struggles, somehow. The myths or stereotypes I will be looking at is the myth of the artist as an outsider and the myth of the muses. But first I have to warn you, I'm talking out of my ass, I'm basing everything I say on hunches, feelings, anecdotal evidence and on artistic exploration of ideas. There is however some scientific backing for some of this, controversial as it may be. I will likely try to dive into the science behind this at a later date, even though I am severely unqualified. Now back to my first unqualified point. Why are artists supposed to be outsiders? Artists are supposed to stand out, with my scraggie beard and unkempt clothes I often get people saying you look like an artist, other artists who are more particular about their appearance often hear wow I'd never figure you for an artist. There's the starving artist like Van Gogh, that theatrically eccentric artist like Dolly, the quirky distance of an Andy Warhol, but also the shy nerdy cartoonist, and even when an artist has the ability to be the life of the party, they are admired for being able to see the world in a different light. Manoeuvring these stereotypes can be exhausting, because at least for me, personally my most stereotypically artist like trait is that I despise being told that I'm like anyone else, I just want to be me. And no matter how, being an artist comes with diverging from the norms. That's not just true for self-professed radical artists, but also for neoclassical painters or folk craft revivalists who diverge away from modernity and back into long gone traditions. And within whatever tradition we aim towards, we mostly want to stand out just enough to be recognised as uniquely us. And the guys of the outsider, artists can potentially create new waves of culture through being culturally divergent. Now when I'm contacted by or talk to other artists that like me have specific diagnosis, most of them fall into a sort of vague category. A lot of them have depression, some bipolar or borderline personality disorder, a lot have ADHD and some are on the autism spectrum. These all fall on a spectrum that is sometimes called neurodivergent. Neurodivergency is not a diagnosis, it is mostly used as a label to identify yourself as belonging to a broad group with some overlap, and also a way of understanding that group. As a term, it started being used for and by people with autism, but it has expanded over the years. There are huge discussions on how to define neurodivergency and who belongs in the category, but as I see it, it is based on the idea that some people, the neurodivergent, have brains that develop in different ways than the majority of people, the neurotypical. And since our society is largely built to fit neurotypical behavior, those displaying neurodivergent behavior often get traumatized for being themselves. And that trauma is often a part of the disorders that then get diagnosed. It's not saying that there are no difficulties inherent to having a neurodivergent brain, of course there are. It's saying that the way society meets divergent behavior and thinking can make life worse for those who diverge. It is a very useful way to understand, for instance, autistic masking and how damaging that can be, or why neurodivergent diagnoses often are comorbid with other diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, PTSD or similar. In the case of my own bipolar, the idea is something like this, I have natural patterns of lower and higher mental energy that stretches over weeks and months, both of which may come with their own sets of real difficulties. But being exposed to society and specifically to school, I got traumatized for being different. In school it is expected to come with the same amount of energy each day more or less, but I had long periods where the bustling of the crowded classroom was simply too much for my mind and I couldn't pay attention and got distracted and angry. And I had other periods where I couldn't let my thoughts and ideas and body rest and again would get distracted and angry. So my school days were full of fighting and disciplinary measures and threats. My reaction was learning to fight, to cheat, to lie in order to ditch school as much as possible, which created a pattern of constant guilty conscience. My last year of school I was away two-thirds of the year through lying, ditching and also real migraines from the mental strain whenever I tried to actually fit in. So it makes sense that as I reached my early teens the constant fighting against the school system had created enough trauma in me to make my patterns of energy blossom into a full-blown bipolar type 2 diagnosis. Which I didn't get diagnosed until years later. This may not be the full explanation for all people with bipolar disorder, but it seems to me to be one likely factor for why bipolar seems to not manifest itself before teenage years to early adulthood, despite being considered an inheritable and therefore genetic disorder. So we might be born with our bipolar patterns, but it just takes society that long to traumatize us into becoming real bipolar people. But that's just my own story. Clearly not all artists are neurodivergent. In fact I don't know of any statistics showing that there are any more neurodivergent people in the arts than in any other place. And many neurodivergent people feel excluded and discriminated against when trying to enter the arts. The art business is just as much a hegemonic tool of oppression as any other business in our current society, and part of its function is to exclude those who do not fit in or otherwise force them to take acceptable forms, forms that can easily be monetized. But even though there might not be a link between art and neurodiversity, there is a link between creativity and divergent thinking. In institutions like our education system, sometimes divergent thinking is no more kindly looked upon than being neurodivergent. A lot of artists grow up with this feeling of having to hide part of who they are, because art is looked upon as unproductive, as frivolous, or even as gay. The attitude towards art that meets most young people is ignorant and harmful, and also confusing because art and creativity might at the same time be the best way many have to get recognized by both the system and their peers. The same creativity that led you to getting shunned, teased and shut down in one setting is also the creativity that in another will get you friends, respect and praise. So even in cases where it's hard to claim that this led to any true trauma, however you define trauma, this dichotomy of rejection and inclusion experienced by artists can go a long way into explaining a lot of the common problems artists face. From self-doubt and imposter syndrome, procrastination, art block and burnout, to people policing and overconfidence and even delusions of grandeur. And while there are plenty of videos dealing with most of these topics, seeing them holistically as a part of your mental and physical health might be a more productive way to view them. And a lot of strategies employed by neurodivergent people to manage their trauma and function in society may also be relevant to us as artists, just as the strategies we use as artists often are relevant to a wider audience. Whether or not we are or identify as neurodivergent, we can learn from the neurodivergent perspective when talking about our struggles as artists. Far too often the myth of the artist as an outsider is played out all wrong, either it's seen as harmful parody or romantic ideal, when in reality it should be seen as a condemnation of society. This society systemically discriminates against divergent thinking and creativity through its institutions, through education, through economic structures and then it embraces and idolizes those who manage to break through the barriers and become quote unquote artists. Art is simply not what decent people do so when art touches us it must have been made by someone exceptional, someone different from normal decent people. As artists we have to react to how society is structured against creativity and whether we do it by emphasizing our normality or by exaggerating our difference or just by trying to be ourselves, part of that struggle with our identity as artists will always overlap with mental health and the tools we develop to stand firmly as ourselves and to keep balance in our lives are the tools of mental health. The second myth I want to look at is the myth of the muses and I'm not really talking about shitheels like Picasso abusing their models and calling them muses, I'm talking about the idea of creativity itself being an outside divine force, which you're free to interpret as spiritually or secularly as you want. Personally I've reached these conclusions from a very atheistic viewpoint. Now the association between femininity and creativity might be an old fashioned and patriarchal idea, but it's still a vital part of how we talk about art. We talk about how we conceive ideas and jokingly we become pregnant and give birth to our works of art. We even refer to our products as our kids at times. Just as Loki is the proud mother of the eight legged horse Sleipnid, I, despite being the father of my real life children, seem to be the mother of many thousands of drawings, which is a fun thought. But let's not dive too far into that cesspool of cliches about eternally masculine and feminine qualities and just accept that for our limited discussion we will refer to the muses in the feminine form. In Greek mythology the muses are goddesses that influence various creative pursuits such as song, poetry and dance and in many languages they are still invoked through words like music, museum or amusing. The details of the muses change over time, but one of the most popular tellings is that there are nine muses, all of them named and associated with their own fields of creativity and that they are the daughters of Zeus and the titan Namostini, whose name we still recognize today in words like mnemonic and memory. The origin of the muses is obscured by time but at the very start of ancient Greek poetry they are already well established. Both Homer and Hesiod dedicate their stories to the muses, tying their stories to tradition with Hesiod even describing his encounter with the muses on Mount Helicon. Before the muses chose him he was a simple shepherd, but then when they sing to him the order of the cosmos and the origins of the gods the muses give his epic poem Theogony their authority. The poem is no longer the words of a mere lowly man but a vessel of an eternal truth. In Theogony Hesiod tells of how Zeus slept with Namostini for nine nights fathering nine muses and Zeus' kingship is often seen as what gives the muses their authority. But the link between the muses, femininity and memory might be just as important. While Greek society was infamously patriarchal and misogynistic even for its time there are theories that the remains of an older matriarchal religion can be seen in various goddesses and myths. The epic poems of Homer and Hesiod were a part of the masculine bardic tradition of archaic Greece, but the goddess Namostini being the personification of a cultural memory itself can perhaps be tied to traditions of women and mothers being the primary oral storytellers of an older order. This feminine oral storytelling tradition continued to remain vital throughout a lot of Europe, particularly in the stories now classified as fairy tales or even in the nursery rhyme character of Mother Goose. These types of stories are often dismissed as old wives tales, a phrase that directly references this tradition. We can also look at the Greek idea of the three fates and the three furies which you find echoes of in Shakespeare's Three Witches of Macbeth and in the Norns of Norse mythology spinning the threads of fate that tell all that is and all that will ever be. In this sense the authority of the Muses does not come from Seuss's kingship as much as it comes from their relation to memory and fate. The Muses can choose to gift upon the artist the ability to tap into the true memory of a culture and thereby create something that rings true and also create something that shapes the truth for coming generations. Now at this point you may be wondering, wasn't this video supposed to be about art and mental health on YouTube? Well, yes, but the idea of the Muses is relevant because it places the source of great art somehow outside of ourselves and instinctively we know this to be true. No matter how much we practice our technique and craft we don't have complete control over when we tap into that collective consciousness and create something that rings true for the ages. This can be a frustration for a lot of artists when we find that some of the works that people have the strongest reactions to might be things that we made in a hurry and without a thought and the works we labour for countless hours over might be met with silence. When we discuss ideas such as flow or drawing while in the zone what we're talking about is reaching a state where our conscious mind no longer has full control over what we do and we leave ourselves to the grace of the fates and the Muses. And we love to believe that when we're in that zone somehow we are able to get in touch with that grand truth that is somehow larger than ourselves. As an artist living with bipolar disorder it's very clear to me that these flow states are a question of mental health and that the ability to tap into them are cyclical. When life is too much and you have too many distractions it is simply harder to get in the zone while working it's harder to lose yourself within the work. And then suddenly for a period of weeks, months or even years you might be able to tap into that flow with effortless ease and then suddenly as it appeared it might disappear. When you have blossomed through a good and creative period where everything just seemed to work out for you it can be very hard to adjust to the mundane reality of merely making art. It can easily lead to blaming ourselves for our failure to remain in that flow and then lead on to things like depression. Even coming to terms with my bipolar diagnosis one of the hardest things for me was to realize that my good periods were not always that good. I would think that creativity came back to me, that the muse visited me once again, that I was cured of my depressions, that I was finally free, that I was the king of the world. Though I'd work through days and nights without sleep and then I'd crush and blame myself for not being cured of my depressions. Sometimes I'd do great work in my hypomanic periods, other times I'd lose control and do crap. Because as Heesid implies in the beginning of theogeny the muses might whisper the truth to you but they also might choose to lie. I see so many artists that cannot be called bipolar whatsoever struggle with the same cycles. When the muse visits them they will overwork themselves and when exhaustion finally sets in and everything becomes as hard as it really is they will wonder why they lost it. Sometimes that's when they give up and find a proper job instead. Being art is really hard and more than that, being in a state of heightened creativity or a flow state is many times as hard. It is hard mentally and hard physically. If you don't take care of your mind and your body you will burn yourself out. I believe this is why my bipolar diagnosis and what I do to try and manage it in terms of daily art practices and physical exercise and mindfulness and all the other tools I use to stay alive seem to resonate with a lot of mentally much more healthy artists. But the saddest truth we can learn from linking our creativity to a concept like the muses and the thing I'm still struggling to realize daily is that no matter how well I balance my mental and physical health no matter how careful, considerate and diligent I am some day the muse will leave me. Right now as I'm writing this I'm in the longest depressive periods I've had in years. I don't know if I've seen the muse in months. The words that I'm typing are plucked from the fog of memory and cobbled together with duct tape and resilience. The thoughts and ideas that I put into this text possess my mind and make it almost impossible to work on anything else but I can't see them clearly. They're all fussy and foggy and out of order. Hopefully my diligence and experience can help wrangle some sense through the haze of depression. During my last dance with the muses I was aware that they would leave me so I managed to restrain myself to balance creative work with family life and physical exercise and get some hours of sleep each night so when I crashed it wasn't a total crash. And now that I'm down I'm not as far down as I would have been before I started taking my mental health problems seriously and importantly I know that if I just keep working on my art on my mental and physical health and my life the muse will return someday and the work I do right here right now no matter how hopeless it seems is laying the groundwork for her next visit. By acknowledging how art and mental health is tied together we can share experience and knowledge to help each other become better artists and better humans. We can get better at this weird thing we call life. And that's equally true whether you're frightfully healthy or currently struggling. Of course talking about mental health publicly is not for everyone. Not everyone can talk about it. Not everyone should talk about it. But if you are one of the ones with the ability and possibility to talk about mental health your mental health then please for the love of the gods do it. It doesn't matter if videos on art and mental health perform poorly right now or if there's a better market in drawing a mangified the hulk making sweet love with Elon Musk. Anyhow the algorithm for all its facts and stats doesn't care about the truth. But art as sung to us by the muses is all about truth. No matter if our truth makes us appear as outsiders. Now here comes the point where you can actually safely turn off the video but if you liked the video please watch to the end. I don't think I even introduced myself at the beginning of the video so hey I'm Kim Dias Holm also called an Ungerhard Holm. I'm an artist from Bergen Norway creating art for free use that means anything you see me draw here or anywhere else is uploaded to my gallery and you can download it for free use that means you can copy it you can change it you can make your own version you can create your own stories of it you can tattoo it and you can even sell it as long as you mention me as the artist. I do this through a Creative Commons attribution license and I do this because I believe the nature of art is free. But I still have to make a living as an artist so please do remember to subscribe, press the bell icon and also if you like my art or the idea of art for free use or even things I talk about then do consider supporting on Patreon with one dollar a month. You can support with more but one dollar a month from enough people does more than you can ever imagine so please if you have one dollar to spare consider supporting. If not then you can support my art through using it and if you like the video and if you have comments if you have anything you would like to share then please do comment and you know I will hopefully be making more of these videos soon bye bye thank you also watch the video that's up here it's probably relevant probably