On being a soft rebel

or maybe a fool or jester in an artist´s clothing

I´ve never considered myself a very rebellious person. When I was younger I was a quite withdrawn girl, hiding behind and escaping through books and stories, poetry.

I´ve had friends who were much more confident, stating their opinion loudly, without the fear of upsetting someone. For me, it was very hard to speak my truth, or even tell people about my actual feelings.

The place where I could say, what I had to say, doing so without being too blunt, were my notebooks and their digital counterparts. The way how I could say, what I had to say, was poetry.

For a long time, however, nobody would see or read my poetry. Because that was the last thing I wanted. It was too personal and especially in my early poetry days I felt very vulnerable about my writing.

Some years ago when I needed to go through my stuff because of moving apartments, I encountered some of my older writing. There were some pages I had to rip out and throw away because I couldn´t bear reading what I had written. Not that I would have experienced something more “dramatic” than the average teen growing up but as someone feeling deeply and not knowing (at that time at least) how to deal with these feelings it had felt quite intense at times:

the heartbreak, the feeling of not being wanted by the guys I wanted, the feeling of not fitting in, the feeling of not being understood, struggling with a changing body, no girl anymore, not yet a woman, having a challenging relationship with myself and oh so many questions about life and existence.

I didn´t need to keep the (trust me: objectively bad and way too dramatic) writing because I still remember very well, how it had felt back then. That feeling is stored in my body as a tiny scar, a little ache when memory touches it. And that´s ok. It´s a landmark, part of who I am. But today, from a distance, my poetry about it would be very different.

Maybe questioning things is part of being rebellious

You might wonder what this has to do with rebellion. So far, nothing. That´s the point that I wanted to make. I wasn´t a very rebellious person.

However, I had questions. I questioned many things and have always been a seeker, I guess. And with that I wasn´t content or didn´t want to buy into the stories of “that´s just how things are”, “that´s how it is”, “that´s how everybody´s doing it”.

My feeling of being different gave me no choice but to search for others who might show me, that after all I wasn´t that different but just looking at “reality” from a slightly different perspective than many people around me.

Eventually that got me into making art and it was one of my core concerns to inspire people to gain new perspectives, question the idea of how things “should be” and offering a space for “alternative realities” and deeper reflection.

That role to me is not so different to the role of the jester: saying the “truth” or certain things that you wouldn´t commonly say differently. In a witty way. In a poetic way. In a roundabout way.

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.”

There is this Shakespeare quote from a Midsummer night´s dream that I love.

Let´s exchange the lunatic for the fool… and the lover for someone feeling and caring deeply about something (I´ll come back to that). And then let´s look at the potential of imagination:

Imagination is a powerful ability that expands and goes beyond what´s in front of us. It enables us to go beyond the boundaries of a “common sense” that often is just a kind of “habitual sense”, the things we know within our bubble (family, culture…) and believe to be true for all. The beliefs that we often don´t dare to shake up a little.

Travelling, by the way, is wonderful to understand how not normal “normal” is. Because everywhere in this world we are used to different “normalities”. That said: If you are able to travel and open up your horizon, you are a lucky person.

But, dear traveller of the mind and ideas, to take a quick return flight to my original hypothesis: I believe that said imagination is what equips many artists (writers, poets, jesters – or today probably political comedy or satire, which I guess is often a little less subtle… but still) to question and challenge the assumptions we have about life and the way we need to live it. To question the written and unwritten laws.

'That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all.'

Isaac Asimov, Guide to Shakespeare

– and maybe sometimes the great secret of the “soft rebels” is that they do not seem to be rebellious but, just like the fool, embed their messages in a way that matches their gifts.

Being a soft rebel comes in many ways

And in that way I think many of us are something like “soft rebels” or rebels in disguise, subtly (or sometimes not to subtly) infusing our creations with topics, thoughts and feelings that are occupying us.

Sometimes it might be motivated by anger or frustration, sometimes by enthusiam and love, sometimes by sadness or grief, sometimes by hope. It is motivated by feeling and caring deeply about something and by wanting to give it a form and with that a voice.

Maybe we don´t speak so directly but we don´t stay silent, either. And maybe that is how we reach these people that the “obvious rebels” scare away immediately.

Maybe we offer binoculars to look out, magnifying glasses to look closer, mirrors to look at ourselves and inside. Telescopes sometimes, if we are daring. Kaleidoscopes to show how things can change, transform… and for some much needed awe.

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What´s your take on that?
And how is it that you are a rebel?

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Who am I and what am I doing besides sharing my musings on Substack?

I am Chrischa: artist, poet and Embodiment coach. I work at the intersection of Creativity, Embodiment (practices that use and foster the body-mind-connection) and Inner Transformation.

Through my classes, workshops and 1:1 coaching, I help women to feel more at home in their body, more connected and alive, to give space to their creativity and to dare to be and express themselves in all their wonderful facets.

https://chrischavenus.de
(the website is in German but I´ve offers for English speakers, too)

I´m also creating artist/poetry publications that you can find and purchase here