The Opposite of War

​Hillary Rubesin, PhD, LIMHP, REAT
 
“The opposite of war isn’t peace. It’s creation.”
 
This Jonathan Larson quote, from his hit Broadway musical, RENT, has been my email tagline since college. I honestly don’t think about it much... even though it has been at the bottom of every single message I’ve sent for the last twenty years.
 
Around the time I added this tagline, I remember speaking with my then 5-year-old cousin, Lila, about her day at summer camp. She reported excitedly, “I made art!” I responded with a smile and a question, “What is art?” She looked at me like this was the silliest question in the world, and replied, “It’s whatever you make!”
 
I’m going to be honest: In the current times, I’ve struggled, really struggled, to find my creativity. I have often felt pangs of guilt and hypocrisy as I’ve encouraged my clients to create as an active response to the horrors of the world.
 
To combat this guilt and to help “get my groove back,” I recently signed up for songwriting lessons with a local musician. At our first meeting, we played around with various chord progressions on both guitar and piano, and he challenged me to write 16 different “parts” (think four or more bars of music) in the key of C as my weekly homework. I immediately responded, “Okay... but don’t expect too much!”
 
I heard my cousin Lila’s voice come through him: “Whatever you come up with will be great!”
 
Art is whatever you make.
 
So I did it. I came up with random combinations of C’s, D minors, E minors, and so on... and, the best part was, I didn’t judge myself (even when I struggled to remember what the heck a diminished chord is!)
 
And, as I could have predicted, the simple act of creation helped me feel better.
 
So many psychological models and theories related to trauma and grief revolve around action: Posttraumatic Growth, Adversity-Activated Development; the Adaptation and Development After Persecution and Trauma model. The crux of these theories/models is that taking action directly pushes against the immobilization often triggered by trauma. 
 
One of the many incredible things about the arts is that they are inherently active. In order to create, to write, to dance, to drum, to strum, to paint, to act, to take a photograph, you must move. You must activate something inside yourself.
 
The opposite of war isn’t peace. It’s creation.
Art is whatever you make.
 
I hope you make something today. 

---