Afronaut Zu
Image: Hannah Faith Oni
Pictured: Artist, Musician; Afronaut Zu.
I’ve spent ages procrastinating and panicking about writing this. It’s become a part of my process for a lot of things unfortunately.
For the last 5 years or so I’ve been on the journey of trying to understand and deal with my insecurities. I’ve discovered a lot about myself that kinda fucked me up. Made me feel out of my own depth and at times out of control. I’ve seen the benefits of dealing with insecurities head on and also the real dangers of ignoring or not even recognising that they exist (for me at least).
Creativity and in particular my relationship with music have played on both sides of that line. Performing has pretty much always been the most enjoyable part of doing music and for me and the experience has developed and refined itself over the years into something I now know how to access mostly whenever I want to whether i’m on stage or not.
However there are a lot of other moving parts to this music thing.
Writing and recording are probably 2 of my greatest sources of insecurity creatively. For something that I have to do so frequently to leave me feeling so negative about myself really takes a toll on me. Honestly till this day 80% of the time when I need to write it feels like my brain literally shuts off. It’s like I’m trapped in writer's block but every now and again I manage to poke my head out of the window or something. In terms of self confidence its pretty easy to see how this would have an affect although at first I think I was pretty good at compartmentalising. I understand that my lack of confidence in that aspect is specific to the things I haven’t written yet, I’m generally very happy with what I've written so far.
“However this feeling over the years has exposed and attached it self to other negative habits and beliefs I hold, to form what at times is a nearly paralysing lack of self belief.”
Image: Hannah Faith Oni
(Afronaut Zu pictured with Pink Lillies. Native to Asia and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere; they represent many things for many cultures such as love, femininity, renewal and transition).
Obviously not being able to write verses and choruses isn’t the end of the world but its not really about the writing as much as it is the frustration of consistently not being able to figure out how to express myself. I’m also not suggesting that this has been the only thing that has contributed to my current mental state, I’m just giving an example that I’m comfortable with in relation to creativity and mental health.
Generally I’ve been having problems expressing myself over the last few years. I can’t pinpoint when it started but I know for sure it wasn’t always like this. I talk a lot, even in public but my thoughts aren’t always produced in a straight line. A lot of times I leave a conversation feeling like I haven’t been able to accurately convey simple thoughts effectively. Overtime I started to question whether my thoughts even made sense. Now sometimes it feels like I lose the confidence to produce an opinion on something or an idea which is just a fucking weird feeling. Contributing to basic conversations becomes physically draining. Even positive interactions feel weighty and for the most part I just want to be in my own space with limited interactions. I find when I’m “forced” to be outside when I don’t feel comfortable, I overcompensate in some way or another which basically results in that lack of comfortability showing in other ways, weird interactions, confusion etc. Being able to intellectualise this shit is one thing but the process of dealing with it practically is a whole different situation..
Honestly consuming art helps me way more than creating it. Probably because there's so much attached to creating for me at the moment. I was telling Tinyman the music industry just feels like my cage. That being said as a consumer most of my experiences of/with music are pretty positive. The memories attached to songs and albums, hearing lyrics for the first time to songs I’ve been listening to my whole life, new styles, new perspectives new possibilities, watching my friends perform and grow in their different art forms. Experiencing other peoples creativity particularly my friends art is definitely one of the things that gives my mind a break.
In regards to my writing and how I feel about my communication and social skills ( which I also consider to be creative) I do believe whatever that is more of a symptom than a root problem and as I figure myself out I’m sure that will unravel. For now it just feels like a signal that something isn't right, blocked off to a degree and not flowing. I’m trying to figure out what that is and unblock it, because I remember what it feels like for that to just flow and it felt way better than this does if I’m honest.