The Artistic Mind

A Journey Through Neuroscience and Self-Discovery

Blue Whale Thinking

Let’s crack open the skull and rummage through the wires, shall we? The artistic mind—an odd beast, tangled in synapses, draped in melancholy, and utterly obsessed with making sense of a world that rarely makes sense back. And here I am, dissecting my own, spilling the guts of creativity across the page, because self-exploration is the only game worth playing when you're an artist—or, let’s face it, a human being trying to stay sane.

I’ve had my fair share of scrapes with the digital mob, the kind that twists words and warps intentions. A past blog post became a battleground, a reminder that honesty is a double-edged sword. But if there’s one thing I refuse to do, it’s lie to myself. So, I dig deeper.

The Brain: A Meat Computer with a Taste for Madness

Our brains are a mess of grey matter and bad decisions, neurons firing off like the young team on Bucky, scrapping ootside the kebab shop. But in the midst of the chaos, certain areas shine brighter—especially in those cursed with the compulsion to create. The precuneus lobe, nestled in the parietal region, is where self-awareness meets fine motor skills, the neural command center for scribblers, strummers, and painters alike. Artists light up this patch like a city skyline, their minds forever whirring, building, unpicking and reassembling the world in strange and beautiful ways.

But there’s a cost. Creativity and melancholy are bedfellows, forever tangled in sweaty sheets. The constant churn of thought, the need to distil experience into art—it’s exhausting. And when the world doesn’t understand, when your output is met with blank stares or, worse, outright hostility, that weight becomes heavier. Maybe it’s not that others don’t get us. Maybe we just haven’t fully grasped ourselves, yet.

The Boy Who Asked Everything

In my house, curiosity is a family business. My son,, is a relentless interrogator of the universe. One day, as I’m half-distracted, he hits me with: “Daddy, what’s bigger? Mount Everest or the Great Wall of China stood up on its side?”

I pause, because the question is absurdly brilliant. “Good one, champ,” I say. “Depends how you measure it.”

He goes, "How about in blue whales?"

"Of course, how else would you measure it?" I say. "Get googling."

His face lights up. “Wow—The Great Wall is 847,847.2 Blue Whales long!”

And just like that, his brain builds a new world, stitching together knowledge with imagination, logic with lunacy. His mind, unfettered by the dead weight of expectation, leaps over boundaries I’ve long since learned to navigate with caution. Watching him is like watching my own childhood self—except where his curiosity is pure and free, mine has been tempered by self-doubt, dulled by criticism, and shackled by the endless grind of adult responsibility.

Yet, despite the madness of juggling parenting, work, and an insatiable urge to create, I know this: when I make art, I reconnect with that same untamed curiosity. When I write, when I compose, when I bring something new into existence, I shake off the rust, the fear, the doubt. I become weightless again, if only for a while. And that’s not just for me—it’s for him, for my family, for everyone I love. Because an artist who stops creating is a light switched off. And I refuse to live in the dark.

The Art of Staying Sane

Neuroscience backs it up. The more we engage creatively, the more robust our minds become. The artistic brain isn’t just a source of erratic brilliance—it’s a fortress of resilience, constantly rewiring, adapting, pushing against the boundaries of expression and survival. Artists, for all their eccentricities, have minds that thrive on this intricate interplay—if they can resist the pull of self-destruction.

The link between art and mental health is undeniable, a raw, symbiotic dance of expression and catharsis. Creativity isn’t just an indulgence; it’s a lifeline. The mind, when starved of it, withers, retracts into itself like a dying vine. And if I can use my psychology degree to help fellow artists navigate their own murky waters, to reinforce the bridge between passion and well-being, then that’s a path worth walking.

Because the alternative? Suppression, stagnation, decay. The artist who doesn’t create is a caged animal, pacing relentlessly in a prison of their own making, a pressure cooker with a broken valve, doomed to rupture under the weight of their own untapped energy. Creativity isn’t just a way of life—it’s a necessity for survival.

A Final Thought

My wean’s relentless questioning reminds me of something essential—that we were all once that curious, that unafraid to ask the ridiculous, the impossible, the downright unanswerable. Before life weighed us down with expectations, with the need for pragmatism, we roamed through thought experiments and absurd connections, unshackled by doubt. The artistic mind, with all its weird wiring and fragile brilliance, is a relic of that time, a stubborn refusal to let go of the limitless wonder of youth. But it needs nurturing, space to breathe, a refusal to be dulled by the world’s relentless cynicism.

So, I’ll keep peeling back the layers, keep poking at the neural oddities, keep holding the line against the tide of misunderstanding. I’ll chase curiosity like a bloodhound, let imagination run rampant, and welcome every strange, nonsensical question as a beacon leading me back to that raw, untamed place where art is born.

And if all else fails? At least I’ll have a damn good story to tell.

Ray. 2019

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