On leaving Science for the Arts

"The most common despair is... not choosing, or willing, to be oneself, [but] the deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than oneself."
-- Soren Kierkegaard

I made the decision to leave academic science shortly after publishing my first first-author manuscript in the peer-reviewed journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. This, the body of work of my Master's thesis, was among four other peer-reviewed publications and a book chapter I had co-authored as a Doctoral Candidate. When taken alongside the positive feedback I received from my mentors, these resume line items suggested that I had a promising career as academician and scientist. But with my increasing achievement in academe, I felt diminishing satisfaction with my life in all its day-to-day details and a deepening sense of despair. 

As I built an identity on the basis of my intellectual achievements, institutional affiliations, and other ego-driven pursuits, I fashioned an increasingly weighty mask that veiled my essential Self in a shroud of success. I had to minimize my quirks and eccentricities, compulsions to draw, paint, and create, and even my penchant for florid prose, in order to function effectively as an academic scientist. And yet this is what I chose to do. This was both my doing and my undoing. 

In working and living within the realm of scientific ideas, I failed to acknowledge my humanity, my feelings, my artistry, and my sense of spirituality. I denied myself as a creative, loving Being, and nurturing woman on a daily basis. I told myself that I could be an Artist when I retired; but if I've known that I am an Artist since as early as I can remember, then why should I wait?

To be fair, I didn't know that I wasn't meant to be a scientist until I tried it. I mean, I would get lost in the "flow" when doing scientific research, but my body betrayed my soul with its persistently furrowed brow, knotted-up shoulders, and chronic tension headaches. It's true that I felt a certain degree of satisfaction with each scientific or academic achievement unlocked -- but it never brought me happiness, and certainly never any joy. It was about as rewarding as an self-induced orgasm -- somewhat satisfying but ultimately pretty pointless. In Science, I always felt like I was a small cog in some great machine cranking a strange machine much larger than me -- I was just a small, predetermined nut within a larger tool, but a tool nonetheless. 

In contrast, today, I consistently find myself beaming when I hold a pencil or paintbrush, my soul skipping delightedly in serene fields of imagination as I stand before a blank canvas -- god, why does creating, and color, and canvas, always make me smile so stupidly large?

As an Artist, I find myself feeling not only connected with others, but also with myself. I have a sense of unity with and interdependence on my fellow man without having to sacrifice my creative impulse, artistry or individuality. I am both unique unto myself and a citizen of humanity at the same time. My art brings me a tremendous sense of purpose, joy, and lightness of being. I am complete.