fucking with levity (thinking out loud)

I've had a few creative mentors over the years, people I respected (some I still respect), people I looked up to without question, people I relied on, people who I treated like Gods when they were undeniably human. I took the best parts of them to heart, while also taking the things that don't work for me.  
 
There's one line in particular, that runs through my head, rent free. "Indie, you need more levity, your work is brilliant, but it's too heavy on its own". And I think about that all the time. I think about how I love the darkness as much as I hate it. I think about how the convention of normal both bores and confuses me. I think about how I'm rarely intentionally funny, especially in my writing. I'm not comedic, unless it involves some kind of disaster, and what humour I do express is often sarcastic, dark, sometimes macarbe, or just plain silly. I think about how his words twist inside me and make me feel bad for not living up to his expectations or hopes for me. And I realise it's completely and utterly stupid for me to feel guilty for not being funny or light-sided. But I do feel guilty.  
 
I joined a writing group irl, and I've been a few times. I've shared about depression and alcoholism. The last time I had to get up and share, I picked something a bit different, and I made people laugh, and it was intentional, because the content was unexpected and a little ridiculous.  
 
I thought about my old mentor, who was always on about "levity, Indie, levity". Part of me wished he was there, so I could be like, "ha, see, I am funny". And then there is the other part of me that's like, "why do you still give a fuck about what he thinks about you?"  
 
Because ultimately what he thinks of me doesn't matter. He taught me everything he could, and I definitely didn't master it, but I did grow as an artist. And while he had high hopes for me, and still does (I think), there are things I will probably never master, there are things I don't care to.  
 
Honestly, I don't just want to be an Angst Queen all the fucking time, but that darkness, my romanticism of it, my emotional masochism, my need to delve into things that are unpleasant or uncomfortable, aren't things I care to change. I've always been drawn to the dark side, and if I swap that out for homogenized happy days, who the hell am I? And that raises a whole different set of questions.