Experiencing sadness and anger can make you feel more creative

Host: The studio smelled of paint, dust, and rain-soaked wood. The windows were streaked with the faint glow of a dying afternoon, and outside, the city’s heartbeat drummed faintly through the walls — the rhythm of traffic, footsteps, and distant horns.

Inside, everything was a kind of beautiful chaos: canvases leaned against the walls, half-finished and trembling with color; brushes stood upright in jars of murky water; an old record player spun a quiet Yoko Ono track, her voice ghostly, echoing through the air like a soul trying to sing its way out of pain.

Jack sat on a stool, his hands stained with charcoal, his eyes distant, watching the faint spiral of smoke from a half-burnt cigarette.

Jeeny stood by the window, one hand pressed against the glass, tracing invisible lines through the condensation.

Outside, the sky was breaking open — a slow drizzle of silver rain over a city that had forgotten how to stop.

Jeeny: softly “Yoko Ono once said — ‘Experiencing sadness and anger can make you feel more creative, and by being creative, you can get beyond your pain or negativity.’”

Her voice was calm but tinged with something raw, as if she had lived those words herself. “I think she meant that art — creation — isn’t about escaping pain. It’s about transforming it.”

Jack: dry laugh “Transforming it into what? Paint doesn’t fix a broken life, Jeeny. Music doesn’t bring back the dead. Creativity’s just a bandage with color on it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But sometimes color’s all you have before you find healing. Sometimes the act of making something out of pain is the only way you stop being ruled by it.”

Host: Jack’s eyes flicked up toward her, the faintest glimmer of conflict running through them. His voice, when it came, was low, almost cracked.

Jack: “You talk about pain like it’s noble. It’s not. It’s ugly. It eats you from the inside out. You don’t paint your way out of that.”

Jeeny: “No. You bleed your way out of it. You pour it onto the canvas, into the words, through the strings of a guitar. That’s what she meant. You create not because it fixes the hurt — but because it reminds you you’re still alive enough to feel it.”

Host: The rain quickened, beating softly against the glass. The record player hissed quietly between songs. A single lamp cast a pale, trembling light over their faces — the artist and the dreamer, both tangled in memory.

Jack: leaning back, staring at the ceiling “You know what I think? Creativity’s just a clever way to hide despair. You paint sadness pretty so people will clap for it.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. You misunderstand. Art doesn’t hide despair — it exposes it in a language the heart can bear. Every artist is confessing something.”

Jack: “Then maybe confession’s overrated. Maybe pain should just be buried and left alone.”

Jeeny: turning to face him “And it will rot there, Jack. Pain buried becomes poison. That’s why we create — not to glorify it, but to cleanse it.”

Host: The air thickened, their voices the only sound above the rain. Jeeny stepped closer to the table, picked up a brush, and dipped it into a jar of blue paint.

She dragged it across a blank canvas — one long, deliberate stroke. The sound of it was almost tender, almost holy.

Jeeny: “Look. That’s sadness. Just one motion, but it’s not trapped inside me anymore. It’s out here — in the world. I can look at it now. Touch it. Shape it.”

Jack watched, his jaw tightening, his eyes flickering with something — envy, maybe. Or recognition.

Jack: “You think that’s enough? Just to throw it onto a surface and call it healing?”

Jeeny: “It’s a beginning. Yoko lost John, and she still made art. She still sang. She didn’t bury the pain — she built with it. Isn’t that courage?”

Jack: “Or denial.”

Jeeny: “No. Denial is silence. This is defiance.”

Host: The rain softened, a whisper now. The room felt alive, charged — like electricity before thunder.

Jack reached for the cigarette, let it burn between his fingers a moment, then crushed it out.

Jack: quietly “You know… I used to draw. When I was a kid. My mother said it was the only time I didn’t look angry.”

Jeeny: smiling softly “What happened?”

Jack: “Life. Bills. Responsibility. The usual suspects.”

Jeeny: “So you stopped creating. And the anger stayed.”

Jack: meeting her gaze “Maybe I need it. Maybe anger’s the only thing that makes me feel real anymore.”

Jeeny: “Then imagine what you could feel if you turned it into something else. What if your anger could build instead of burn?”

Host: The lamp flickered, the faint hum of the bulb sounding like a heartbeat.

Jeeny handed him the brush, her hand steady, her eyes unwavering.

Jeeny: “Here. Don’t think. Just move.”

Jack hesitated, then dipped the brush into the paint — red this time. The stroke came hard, jagged, furious.

Red slashed through blue.

Silence.

Then another stroke. Then another.

The motion became rhythm, the rhythm became release. His shoulders loosened, his breath deepened, his face softened — not smiling, but unburdened.

Host: The sound of the brush against canvas became a kind of language — rough, honest, wordless.

Jeeny: quietly “See? It’s not about making something beautiful. It’s about making something true.”

Jack: breathing heavily, eyes on the canvas “It feels like chaos.”

Jeeny: “Good. That means it’s real.”

Jack: pausing “You really believe we can paint our way past pain?”

Jeeny: “Not past it. Through it. Pain is a doorway, Jack — creativity is how we walk through without dying.”

Host: He stepped back, looking at the mess of color — red bleeding into blue, streaks of grey, scratches where the brush had torn the surface. It wasn’t pretty. But it was alive.

Jack: “It’s ugly.”

Jeeny: nodding “So is grief. So is healing. But it’s yours.”

Host: The record needle clicked at the end of the vinyl. The room went still — just the rain, and the sound of their breathing.

Jeeny turned off the lamp, and the canvas glowed faintly in the fading light, colors shimmering in the half-darkness.

Jack sat down again, staring at what he’d made — half-confused, half-awake.

Jack: softly “I thought creativity was about control. But it feels more like surrender.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You stop trying to fix what’s broken. You let the breaking speak.”

Host: Outside, a car passed, its headlights flashing briefly through the room — lighting the paint, their faces, the air heavy with something sacred and unnamed.

Jeeny: “Pain doesn’t go away, Jack. It just changes shape. Sometimes into music. Sometimes into color. Sometimes into courage.”

Jack: “And sometimes into silence.”

Jeeny: “Even silence is creative — if it’s honest.”

Host: The rain stopped. The city exhaled. The streets gleamed, reborn in the lamplight.

Jack stood, wiping his hands on a rag, his voice softer now — a man who had found, for once, a wordless kind of peace.

Jack: “You were right. I don’t feel lighter. But I feel... less lost.”

Jeeny: smiling gently “That’s the first step. Creation doesn’t erase pain. It gives it somewhere to live that isn’t you.”

Host: She turned toward the window, watching the raindrops tremble on the glass before sliding away.

Jeeny: “Yoko was right. Sadness and anger — they’re not curses. They’re colors. What you do with them… that’s the art.”

Jack: whispering “And maybe the healing.”

Host: The city lights flickered across the wet streets below. Inside the studio, the painting stood drying — a chaotic mess of emotion, of release, of truth.

Jack and Jeeny stood in silence, side by side, staring at what they had made — not beautiful, not finished, but utterly alive.

And in that moment, surrounded by the smell of paint and the quiet pulse of their own hearts, they both understood:

That creation isn’t escape — it’s resurrection.

That through sadness, through anger, through the trembling act of making, the soul remembers its shape again.

Host: The record player spun once more, and Yoko Ono’s voice returned — fragile, fearless, echoing like light in a cracked mirror.

It sang of pain, and of love, and of art —
and of the miracle of being broken, yet still brave enough to create.