On art, damaged people and becoming a poet or

Why I Love Courtney Love

By Marie-Hélène Marcoux

Courtney Love just seems so raw and full of uniqueness that it the easiest thing for me to overcome her disgrace. What is art, if not
the deepest expression of the unattainable part of the soul? It goes way beyond being a simple mercantile commodity or something
beautiful to look at. When the conscious mind is damaged, which I think is Courtney’s case, you need to harvest the fruit of the
unconscious to heal. Afterwards, this precious fruit can be shared with others, for instance via shared drawing, painting, song, etc.
This is what I consider to be true art. Thereby, most of us benefit from the most tortured artist’s creations as we inquire them while
walking in a museum or listening to music. It helps us retrieving a peaceful inner feeling. This occurs without any of these soothing
things emerging from ourselves, as it comes from the art object itself. If more of us knew this, we would be way more grateful to the
artists as a society. All of this is possible because we share as humans what is called a collective unconscious, and which only a few
succeed to discover. This unconscious is what helps us to balance who we aim to be and what we feel. If you have no history and no
wound of your own, you just can’t write meaningful music, or fool anyone with something that resemble it. And if you try to create
anything in a foremost mendacious mindset, you will certainly lose most of your essence. The effect of creation won’t be the same as
if it came from a genuine place. To have a real impact, art must be created with no control or external pressure over the outcome.
Life and its traumatic and euphoric events are what controls the outcome, via their impact on the psyche. That is why the best music
pieces are created by the most injured individuals or the more unstable ones. The subconscious just pops out the masterpiece’s raw
material in the head of the individual, and it needs to be refined, captured and expressed, for others to really be able to enjoy it one
day. This is the real reason I crave artists. And when someone says damaged people are worth nothing or not much, it truly tears my
heart apart. To me, this is either not very intelligent reasoning, or it comes from a person with an empty blank soul. In both cases, he
or she is just not worth my time and energy. My intense attraction to other’s suffering and my volition to reduce the pain in others has
never made me weak, and honestly, I don’t think I could have ever lived happily without it. When you are willing to care, what
screaming eyes are sharing in silence is worth more than a million lessons. I felt just that while watching Barbara Walter’s 1995
interview with Courtney Love. It is what appealed me to discover her music. Someone told me once that the most powerful messages
are the ones communicated through hope. What came to my reflection while watching the interview is different. I think that the
messages filled with despair are stronger than the ones of hope. You just need to dive deeply and gaze into someone’s eyes to seize
this object of infinite value. You will then truly understand what loneliness and agony means. By doing that, you will initiate a
benevolence between you and the person facing you. That is one of the greatest feeling on earth and it is what fills my purpose in
life. The human connection generated by these interactions is limitless, mutual and will bring you closer to your true self. Music is
just a shortcut to capture a little bit of that into others. And that is why I love Courtney Love so much.