Against the Chamomile culture

Hey, fellow nervous wrecker. Another Monday passes by.

Have you noticed how people, with their yoga-toned serenity and chamomile-soaked advice, always say, “Just stay calm” when you’re on the verge of a fully blown meltdown? Really? That’s like handing a man drowning in whisky a bottle of soda and saying, “Sip slowly, it'll all pass.” Rubbish I say.

I’ve always believed that calm is a condition reserved for corpses, bureaucrats, and the clinically unbothered. Panic, my dear friend, is the true battlefield, the birthplace of genius. That’s where the unseen sharpens his pencil and whispers brilliance into the ears of madmen and artists. Panic is the slap on your behind that the father of the universe delivers when it catches you napping on your creative arse. A swift boot to the soul, shouting, “Oie! Time to make something of yourself before you turn into cold butter on warm toast.”

Take Van Gogh, for instance. You think the poor bloke painted Starry Night in a zen garden with a cup of green tea? Hell no. He was knee-deep in mental mayhem, spinning colours like a tornado with a brush. The man had one ear and two truckloads of angst. That painting wasn’t born in tranquility.. it was squeezed out of existential despair like toothpaste from the last tube in a stingy boarding school. Brilliant, chaotic, a tad mad and equally unforgettable.

Now, before some of you sensible types clutch your pearls and ask, “But isn’t panic... bad?”.. yes, if you’re a surgeon or an airline pilot, kindly keep your cool. But if you’re an artist? Panic seems to be that personal trainer with a megaphone screaming, “Paint or perish, Picasso!” It’s the steroid-injected muse that won’t let you sleep until you’ve birthed something worth hanging on a wall or at least tacking above your toilet.

And deadlines.. ah yes, those delightful death sentences dressed as dates. Show me an artist who submits early, and I’ll show you someone who's either lying or underemployed. Deadlines are meant to be toyed with like a mistress .. flirted, ignored, and finally embraced in a flurry of caffeine and confusion. That last-minute jolt, when the email reads, “Just a few tweaks,” but you know it's code for “redesign the bloody Taj Mahal by morning”- that’s the stuff. That’s when the creative dam bursts and you find yourself shouting, “To hell with sleep! Let’s dance with disaster!”

And let us not forget the conniving, ever-present entity called 'Fear of Failure'. It tiptoes beside you like an overzealous mother-in-law whispering, “You’ll never be good enough, beta.” Annoying? Yes. Effective? Absolutely. It’s an entity that you need subjugate, so you can exercise the unseen quickness and boldness that makes you draw bolder, write weirder, paint uglier... until it all turns magnificent. Picasso didn’t contort faces because he was bored- he did it because playing it safe is for people who sell insurance.

So, my fellow creatives, stop fearing the panic. Don't let it linger around like an old friend who smells faintly of whisky and bad decisions. Panic should be beneath you .. your 'beeyatch' in high gaelic. Make it your rocket fuel, your shot of espresso laced with haste. It kicks you out of your comfy slippers and throws you barefoot into the wild forest of “What the hell am I doing?” And that, dear friend, is precisely where the art lives.

So go forth. Flail. Fret. Create. And if someone tells you to calm down, hand them another paintbrush and say, “Here, set your chamomile tea down. Now, paint with me.”