Getting Through to the Other Side

I have been blocked for a few days and I am not sure how to break through it. A lot of time I don't think of art as the means to breaking through a problem. Art is art, nothing more. But on some level I think that art is more than art. There are a lot of books out there that will tell you art solves problems. At one time this was why it was taught in schools. One of my favorite books is "The Artist's Way." I learned that I could develop the discipline to finish things from the book. That if If I wanted to develop creativity in my life, I could do it. That is a lot of power. I did not have to give in to the idea that art was just not a thing one could use as a way to develop ideas. I found a quote by William Blake today: "Degrade first the arts, if you'd Mankind degrade." If you want to see a civilization decay, take away its art.
Art has been my savior, my salvation. Not God, but something more like a mother. It taught me that I could finish things. I could see a thing through to completion. My parents had ten children. That meant alone time with them could be a very difficult thing. So I started to create as a way to escape loneliness. My teachers saw my early attempts at art and responded positively. To me that was power. A way that I could get some much-needed attention.... I never thought of it as manipulation, but maybe that is what it was. A way to gain notice.
Lately I have been thinking so much about my teachers. They were a lifeline to sanity. They taught me so much. I never thought that I would realize how important education was, and an art education in particular. Today I know that my education saved my life. I was a dropout. But someone who educated me when I was young would not let me accept that. Someone took the time to see that I was educated. I was a difficult student. For one, I was left-handed. My Dad was an alcoholic and a dropout as well. So was my mom. She dropped out. To the best of my knowledge never stuck it into my head to get an education. But somehow my experiences with my teachers must have left a mark. A sixth grade teacher told the class about a former student who had hung himself in prison. It never occurred to me that she was making a point: Don't waste your time while you are here. Something like 70 % of prison inmates don't have a high school degree. In our town 50% of the students end up dropping out. I hear these statistics and I think, that is insane.
I guess there is a point: Thank you all my teachers for never giving up on me. I could have never learned to read and write. Somewhere some one cared enough to see that this didn't happen. Maybe I might have hung myself if I stayed on the path to illiteracy. Instead I got my high school equivalency diploma and then went to college. Thank God...