The Destructive Self
We have all been designed to create in this life. To fashion ideas into realities, to explore new thoughts, and to live lives that outwardly express the true inner self. We marvel at those who who bring their art to life. Musicians, Painters, and Poets. We long to express ourselves in such a beautiful and constructive manner. Because we don't know how to express ourselves (perhaps we really do know how, but choose not to for fear of what it will cost us) we live inwardly conflicted lives. We secretly wrestle, quietly scream, and inwardly go to war. We can't make sense of the tension and cannot express ourselves in the manner of the true Artist and so what comes from our hands is nothing short of destruction. It may come through throwing the tools when you can't get the swing-set constructed just right or the tearing up of the canvas when the picture wasn't getting flushed out the way you envisioned. It may come through hateful words when you and another fail to see each other fully, or worse, it may come into being when you strike another because they have unknowingly reflected to much of your worse self. We destroy when the frustration of "what we wish to be is not what is" breaks past our capacity to hold it safely. We destroy because the old container clearly does not work anymore and birthing the new is too labor-some. These expressed fits of aggravation reveal something to us: Our petulance for destruction is bound in our longing to create. Please do not be startled anymore by the self that wants to scream, throw, and smash (do not bury it away, pretending that only the pietist within you exists). Yet do not indulge it because of its ease; the unleashed destruction will only become amplified. Instead, listen to it. Invite it to sit and be still. Let it, without fear, become a teacher for you; usher it to the light. For it is an indicator that there is creative work yet to be done.
