How to Use Art to Heal Yourself: 3 Things Thursday Edition!
Reflections on 3 "Self-Portraits"
Hi, I’m an existential imbecile named Max Murphy. Here on The Murphy Memos we explore the absurdity of existence with crappy cartoons.
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Artists often prioritize the end result of their art—a sad symptom of our market-driven culture industry. But I’d argue that the act of creation contains a therapeutic element. Sometimes just scribbling lines becomes something more than just scribbling lines. It becomes a portal for your subconscious mind to tell you about your sensory perceptions of the world. What is your body telling you? What is the environment telling you? What are your innermost dreams telling you?
What seems random in the moment may become more clearly defined upon further reflection. This has certainly been the case for me many times now. So, I wanted to share how I created the circumstances that allowed that to happen—because, well, it is pretty cool. But in order to make that happen, you need to make it super easy to doodle.
Since I always have my phone on me, I bought the Procreate Pocket iOS app.1 I can’t bring my iPad with me everywhere to take advantage of 5 minutes here or there, but I can doodle in Procreate Pocket.
This doesn’t have to be an app though. Carrying a small pen & pad in your pocket could do the trick2. But it’s important that you like your choice. I know we artsy types sometimes fantasize about going full Luddite and abandoning these damn phones once and for all.
But if the app is what gets you to actually do it in real life—then that’s the only thing that matters. So, despite being a very vocal luddite on Substack Notes, and literally joking about the Unabomber, I encourage pragmatism on this one—even if it means downloading another damn app.
But the most important part is reflecting on your artwork. Really allowing it to speak to you. What is your heart telling your head?
It might be a new perspective on something familiar. It might be a profound insight that prompts a significant life change. It has been for me at least 4 times in my life now, bringing me closer to the truth each time. Not some generic truth either, but my truth. The truth I need to know to become who I am.
The following are 3 doodles I created in Procreate Pocket and my reflections on them. I did not use any prompts or “have a plan” before sitting down to draw. Each of these took 15 minutes or less. My hope is that these can serve as an example for your own process (otherwise I’m just trauma dumping on you for no reason and that would be cringe3).
So, here we go!
1. Upside Down
Unfortunately, I was born in a country called the United States of America. We ostensibly have the most material abundance of any group of humans in history. Like, ever. But actually living here tells a very different story.
Our social systems are… flawed to say the least. As a kid born to the American peasantry, I’ve been subjected to quite a bit of turbulence. A childhood wasted in the grey Soviet slog known as public school. Ended up in the stereotypical college debt trap with the added bonus of choosing communications as a college major—perhaps the worst financial decision of my life. With the added benefit of being reclusive (neurodivergent), things were, ugh… not looking good for me.
Through all of it, I never made it a secret that I was suffering. Struggling to do “the right thing.” Begging the authority figures in my life to provide some kind of direction or guidance.
No help ever came.
The truth was that nobody gave a fuck. Not my teachers. Not my guidance counsellors. Not even my own damn family.
This doodle is a reflection on that feeling. Of being upside down, begging for help, but looking up to only find eyes glazed over in absolute apathy.
I know this might seem like some doomer shit but there is a secret magic to expressing your sadness through art that heals you in some beautiful but invisible way.
2. Free Falling
Lmfao this is literally one of my favorite things I’ve ever created! It is a reference to that one song—you know the one—but the doodle mixes it up with a dark twist. A man is falling to the Earth, horrified knowing that he’s about to be splattered into dog food.
This is representative of both a personal falling as well as a collective one. If you scroll through my Substack notes—hell, even most of my essays—you can tell that I’m not exactly a well-adjusted member of civil society. But it feels like more than just something happening on a personal level. Of course, that is how I experience it. How you likely experience it too. But its also much more than just that.
Things are about to get really bad. Like REALLY BAD.
bad Bad BAD. BAAAAAD!!!!
We might be looking at one of the most turbulent times in human history. So many things are going to break and so many people will be broken. Does it not feel like we’re all free falling at this point? A collapsing quality of life that might not stop until we quite literally bomb ourselves back to the stone age.
Idk, that’s the vibe I was trying to capture at least.
3. Tripping
Ahh, so this one… yeah. This one might seem super abstract. But I spent a lot of time deciphering what the actual fuck is going on here. Funny enough, I’ve come up with an interpretation that spawned some pretty serious self-reflection.
For one, if it wasn’t already obvious, this is about my use of weed—as you can see by the guy lighting up on the bottom left. What might be slightly less obvious is the pink circular object on the right… yeah, that is the portal to my own subconscious mind that can only be activated while smoking weed.4
So, the square head represents my inner Apollonian drive. You know, the overly intellectual rigidity that we’re all familiar with. I’ve felt like I’ve lived most of my life in this box5 so to speak. Essentially, I’ve been reduced to my own oppressor, my own tiny tyrant. My inner Apollonian isn’t just a tyrant—it’s a HOA member power-washing the graffiti off my soul.
I’m being frugal, and disciplined, and orderly, and proactive.
All the things they say are good things.
But holy fuck I’m miserable.
In the last few years, I’ve been opening up to my inner Dionysian. The creative chaos that has spawned my best work. My deepest passions. The same energy that got me to open up this newsletter! Well, my inner Dionysian is the guy riding the snake. He is fighting off my Apollonian drive, trying to reclaim my own inner peace.
It kinda reminds me of that one Marx quote6:
“The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt—your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being.”
Growing up, I watched every adult in my life become increasingly alienated. Estranged not just from the world, but also themselves. They think mindless consumerism can pacify the pain. It fails every single time. It just ends up leaving them worse off as capitalism has become increasingly efficient (predatory) with things like planned obsolescence, and the rise of the subscription economy.
I think there’s something about living in this particular day and age that compels you to focus almost exclusively on your Apollonian drive. And I know for a fact that capitalism plays some role in that.
By fighting off the Apollonian drive with weed, it feels like a way of spiritually reclaiming agency and autonomy of my own mind. I have been optimizing myself to death, and I can’t live that way anymore.
Final Thoughts
Go draw your rage. Doodle your dread. Let your subconscious vomit on the page. The world’s on fire—might as well make art with the ashes boiii
Not sponsored, and no affiliate link. Procreate Pocket is just a good app that I use and love. And it might be worth trying it out if you want to doodle as a form of self-discovery :)
Been trying to carry a small notepad & pen with me instead of my phone. I actually really like it but holy shit do people look at me like I’m crazy.
If this feels like an unhinged therapy session held in a Walmart parking lot, good. I can’t afford real therapy!
Both the doodle and this email were created under the influence—fuck yeah!
I didn’t realize this until I started writing this email, but I also explored this idea of being boxed in by the Apollonian drive in this poetry comic.
Hahaha! I love these! Mostly because I can totally relate. I also have that boxy gal inside my head.