Hi, OP here (I think... unless someone else is losing their mind and wrote a thread about it?)

I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with this, per se. I used to love creating art. I LIVED for writing, and wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Now that I'm grown, I'm pursuing a "safe" career choice, with the hopes that I can rekindle the love of writing that I have seemingly lost for years, and return to it and use the career as my "day job".

And I hate it.

And I want to run away. I've contemplated packing a tiny bag and just taking off, not telling anyone where I'm going--partly because I wouldn't even know where I was headed.

There's a massive desire that I harbor, and I don't know what it requires to be satisfied. It feels like being totally starved, but nothing I eat satiates the hunger. I don't know who I am, or what I want. But the utterly convoluted comments that some people here have been writing about "art" and "what is art" and whatever else... pardon me for shitting on your philosophies, but I'm a pragmatist at heart. It's all well and dandy to speculate and ponder the pointless, it passes the time. But it doesn't fix a dark-night-of-the-soul situation.

Stripping away the Crowley, the Regardie, the Mathers and the Levi, what can I actually sink my teeth into to find answers? You say to create art, but surely there's more to it than just putting a paintbrush to a canvas.

I'm missing something, and the discontent and dissatisfaction is so palpable, I'm surprised it hasn't manifested as physical pain.

What the fuck is this? Has anyone else experienced this before? I'm in my mid-20's, I'm WAY too old to be experiencing this level of angst.