Art Project
My sister Catherine Hahn is in the early stages of implementing an art project about my intrusive, repetitive thoughts. She asked me to write a piece about why I want to participate in her project and why I think it's a worthwhile project. The piece I wrote is included below.
Why I Want to Participate
I wish to participate in my sister's IRT project because I love my sister, I want to spend time working with her, and she obviously feels this project is worthwhile and I want to support her by participating in this project. I feel the project is worthwhile because it helps to spread knowledge about mental illness, and schizophrenia in particular, to the general public. Although my particular symptom is somewhat uncommon, it underscores the negativity experienced by those living with schizophrenia (the content is mostly negative and gloomy). Many people who have schizophrenia have hard lives, and are marginalized to a great extent. I used to be a lot sicker than I am now, so I know what it's like. My symptom has a lot of negativity, nevertheless, it has the potential of being at the center of an art project due to its quality of being unusual, quirky, and maybe even unique. That's partly because it includes "characters". My sister seems to be fascinated by the various characters that inhabit my IRT world. To me those characters are somewhat one dimensional, they lack depth. She's a theater person, so she has a different perspective.
Another reason I wish to participate in this project is to show that a person living with serious mental illness is still capable of making a positive contribution to society. I'm inventing a new programming language which is innovative, and I hope to turn it into a profitable tech startup. In case my tech startup happens to make it big, being at the center of an art project adds to my fame/notoriety. Also it helps make the art project look better if the person at its center overcomes adversity and becomes a successful entrepreneur (or at least is in the process of building a new piece of tech since its development will take a couple of years).