Creative mind, troubled soul
October 8, 2008 5:32 AM Subscribe
"The arts are more dangerous [than other professions] because they require sensitivity to a large extent ... If you go too far you can pay a price -- you can be too sensitive to live in this world." Pondering the link between creativity and depression.
Also: famous writers, composers, poets and artists with bipolar disorder.
Also: famous writers, composers, poets and artists with bipolar disorder.
It would be very easy to make jokes here, about 35 come to mind, but even I understand this is not something to mock.
posted by Senator at 5:52 AM on October 8, 2008
posted by Senator at 5:52 AM on October 8, 2008
Interesting and unnerving.
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 5:54 AM on October 8, 2008
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 5:54 AM on October 8, 2008
I think this creative = doomed to mental illness thing romanticizes both art and mental illness, and it grates on me to read things like this. There are healthy people creating great art. There are healthy people creating shit art. There are unhinged people creating great art, because among any population there will be people who are mentally ill, and perhaps yes, they are drawn to the creative arts, maybe with a side order of confirmation bias. I don't know. Correlation does not equal causation.
But I do know that mental illness SUCKS and it is not something to revere or to treat as an creativity-granting gift. The highs, even at their highest highs, aren't worth the lows and aren't worth dying for.
posted by fiercecupcake at 6:00 AM on October 8, 2008 [15 favorites]
But I do know that mental illness SUCKS and it is not something to revere or to treat as an creativity-granting gift. The highs, even at their highest highs, aren't worth the lows and aren't worth dying for.
posted by fiercecupcake at 6:00 AM on October 8, 2008 [15 favorites]
The quote in the FPP is... debatable, although it's admittedly out of context. One could just as as easily claim, and more justifiably, that: "Lumberjacking is more dangerous [than other professions] because it requires staying out of the way of falling trees, and being very careful not to cut your own extremities off with a chainsaw ... If you don't run away fast enough you can pay a price -- you can be too sensitive to withstand the impact of the falling tree or the buzzy rotating blade."
Could this be considered a genuine health & safety issue, I wonder. Will organisations who employ artists be obliged to desensetize them somehow (deliberately, for a change), in order to pre-empt potential suicide attempts? Or else ensure they do not wear belts or neckties at work? Do artists have higher life insurance premiums than those with other vocations?
posted by misteraitch at 6:05 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Could this be considered a genuine health & safety issue, I wonder. Will organisations who employ artists be obliged to desensetize them somehow (deliberately, for a change), in order to pre-empt potential suicide attempts? Or else ensure they do not wear belts or neckties at work? Do artists have higher life insurance premiums than those with other vocations?
posted by misteraitch at 6:05 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Nick Drakes mother wrote a poem many years ago that I think touches on this important subject:
THE SHELL
Living grows ‘round us like a skin
to shut away the outer desolation,
for if we clearly marked the furthest deep,
we should be dead
long years before the grave.
But turning around within the home, this shell
of worry, discontent, and narrow joy,
we grow and flourish, and rarely see the outside dark
that would confound our eyes.
Some break the shell.
I think that there are those who push their fingers
through the brittle walls and make a hole,
and through this cruel slit, stare out
across the cinders of the world
with naked eyes. They look both out and in,
knowing themselves, and too much else beside.
posted by scarello at 6:12 AM on October 8, 2008 [29 favorites]
THE SHELL
Living grows ‘round us like a skin
to shut away the outer desolation,
for if we clearly marked the furthest deep,
we should be dead
long years before the grave.
But turning around within the home, this shell
of worry, discontent, and narrow joy,
we grow and flourish, and rarely see the outside dark
that would confound our eyes.
Some break the shell.
I think that there are those who push their fingers
through the brittle walls and make a hole,
and through this cruel slit, stare out
across the cinders of the world
with naked eyes. They look both out and in,
knowing themselves, and too much else beside.
posted by scarello at 6:12 AM on October 8, 2008 [29 favorites]
Pondering the link between current events and superficial "science" articles.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:16 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:16 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
Confirmation bias.
posted by No-sword at 6:17 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by No-sword at 6:17 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Correlation does not equal causation.
No it doesn't. There are other factors though.
In photography the idea of taking a photo from a normal standing position is seen as a little dull. Give or take a few inches and some individuals, most people are within the same height range, therefore photos taken from your own perspective tend not to have as much impact because you are familiar with the perspective.
The same thing, I think, applies to a lot of the creative arts. Mental illness in an artist can, unfortunately, provide the consumer (for want of a better word) of the art with a perspective completely unlike their own.
It raises the possibility that the numbers of people suffering from some form of mental illness pursuing careers in the creative arts is perhaps no more or less than any other career, but that the ones who are elevated by success may be the ones whose perspective deviates most from the norm (again for want of a better phrase).
posted by mandal at 6:19 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
No it doesn't. There are other factors though.
In photography the idea of taking a photo from a normal standing position is seen as a little dull. Give or take a few inches and some individuals, most people are within the same height range, therefore photos taken from your own perspective tend not to have as much impact because you are familiar with the perspective.
The same thing, I think, applies to a lot of the creative arts. Mental illness in an artist can, unfortunately, provide the consumer (for want of a better word) of the art with a perspective completely unlike their own.
It raises the possibility that the numbers of people suffering from some form of mental illness pursuing careers in the creative arts is perhaps no more or less than any other career, but that the ones who are elevated by success may be the ones whose perspective deviates most from the norm (again for want of a better phrase).
posted by mandal at 6:19 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
In my experience (and many of my friends and relatives are involved in the arts in one capacity or another), the average artist is more depressed (or, at least, less content with their lot) than the average, say, engineer. However, part of the reason for this might be because most artists are *fucking broke*.
However, lawyers seem more depressed as a whole than any other profession I am aware of, and they positively rake it in, so who knows?
posted by you just lost the game at 6:40 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
However, lawyers seem more depressed as a whole than any other profession I am aware of, and they positively rake it in, so who knows?
posted by you just lost the game at 6:40 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
I think this creative = doomed to mental illness thing romanticizes both art and mental illness, and it grates on me to read things like this. There are healthy people creating great art. There are healthy people creating shit art. There are unhinged people creating great art, because among any population there will be people who are mentally ill, and perhaps yes, they are drawn to the creative arts, maybe with a side order of confirmation bias. I don't know. Correlation does not equal causation.
But I do know that mental illness SUCKS and it is not something to revere or to treat as an creativity-granting gift. The highs, even at their highest highs, aren't worth the lows and aren't worth dying for.
Amen. I think the "mentally ill genius" is kind of a modern version of the "muse" concept- the artist's hand used to be moved by the Gods, now it's rogue brain chemistry. The only reason everyone can't be a great artist is that they don't have the right God or neuron on their team.
It's either that or believe that creating art is the most unromantic thing of all- work.
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:41 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
But I do know that mental illness SUCKS and it is not something to revere or to treat as an creativity-granting gift. The highs, even at their highest highs, aren't worth the lows and aren't worth dying for.
Amen. I think the "mentally ill genius" is kind of a modern version of the "muse" concept- the artist's hand used to be moved by the Gods, now it's rogue brain chemistry. The only reason everyone can't be a great artist is that they don't have the right God or neuron on their team.
It's either that or believe that creating art is the most unromantic thing of all- work.
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:41 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
Society only values a relatively narrow slice of the whole spectrum of human behaviour and capabilities. Anyone who differs from the social norms - in terms of ability, outlook, attitude - feels some pressure to conform.
Resistance to the social norm is sometimes labelled "illness", unfortunately, and prolonged tension where one's direction is at odds with society's expectations can result in genuine illness.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:45 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Resistance to the social norm is sometimes labelled "illness", unfortunately, and prolonged tension where one's direction is at odds with society's expectations can result in genuine illness.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:45 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
The only way this kind of crap does have any kind of validity is this: human beings have a drive to make themselves happy. In this sense, art (or any form of achievement) can be an attempt at self-medication: "if I can just finish this book, if I can just get this role, if I can just express how I feel, I'll finally be happy..."
It doesn't work like that of course. But the belief that it could work that way is an incredibly powerful motivator.
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:46 AM on October 8, 2008
It doesn't work like that of course. But the belief that it could work that way is an incredibly powerful motivator.
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:46 AM on October 8, 2008
Resistance to the social norm is sometimes labelled "illness", unfortunately,
Is it? or what page of the DSM-IV?
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:49 AM on October 8, 2008
Is it? or what page of the DSM-IV?
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:49 AM on October 8, 2008
Do artists have higher life insurance premiums than those with other vocations?
In the ninties, anyone working for an arts organization, artist or not, generally paid higher health insurance premiums, mostly because of HIV & AIDS. Running a small theatre, music venue, or gallery, you are going to have a harder time getting your employees insured than at a small grocery or accounting firm. Yes, that's anecdotal, but everyone believed it at the time and our premiums reflected it. I don't know how much actuarial tables have changed over time, or how heavily Non HIV & AIDS expereince factors such as mental illness play into this.
posted by rainbaby at 6:49 AM on October 8, 2008
In the ninties, anyone working for an arts organization, artist or not, generally paid higher health insurance premiums, mostly because of HIV & AIDS. Running a small theatre, music venue, or gallery, you are going to have a harder time getting your employees insured than at a small grocery or accounting firm. Yes, that's anecdotal, but everyone believed it at the time and our premiums reflected it. I don't know how much actuarial tables have changed over time, or how heavily Non HIV & AIDS expereince factors such as mental illness play into this.
posted by rainbaby at 6:49 AM on October 8, 2008
In my experience (and many of my friends and relatives are involved in the arts in one capacity or another), the average artist is more depressed (or, at least, less content with their lot) than the average, say, engineer. However, part of the reason for this might be because most artists are *fucking broke*.
However, lawyers seem more depressed as a whole than any other profession I am aware of, and they positively rake it in, so who knows?
It's not the brokeness, it's the disappointment that comes from unfulfilled promise. The lawyer is raking it in, but it turns out that he's forced into soul-destroyingly boringly work for which he's paid by strictly-monitored hourly billing and receives the disdain of the public.For the artist, it's not merely being broke, it's that he's likely very talented and pouring so much of himself into his work and getting very little payback in the form of attention and monetary reward in return.
The average engineer wants to solve interesting and difficult math problems for money and see your plans get built, and you pretty get those things with an engineering career. They don't hit their depressive phases until they get laid off in the 50s and can't find a new job.
posted by deanc at 6:52 AM on October 8, 2008 [3 favorites]
However, lawyers seem more depressed as a whole than any other profession I am aware of, and they positively rake it in, so who knows?
It's not the brokeness, it's the disappointment that comes from unfulfilled promise. The lawyer is raking it in, but it turns out that he's forced into soul-destroyingly boringly work for which he's paid by strictly-monitored hourly billing and receives the disdain of the public.For the artist, it's not merely being broke, it's that he's likely very talented and pouring so much of himself into his work and getting very little payback in the form of attention and monetary reward in return.
The average engineer wants to solve interesting and difficult math problems for money and see your plans get built, and you pretty get those things with an engineering career. They don't hit their depressive phases until they get laid off in the 50s and can't find a new job.
posted by deanc at 6:52 AM on October 8, 2008 [3 favorites]
Of course the average artist is more depressed. Have you seen their paychecks?
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:03 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:03 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
Or could it just be that we notice when an artist like Cobain, Ledger, or Plath kill themselves, but we don't notice higher rates of suicide and mental illness among police officers, lawyers, and doctors?
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:06 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:06 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
I'm a writer who currently can't get any more than about forty bucks per article.
I'm not depressed, but I'm occasionally bummed that my work devalued that much while guys who play football a few hours a day get paid umtpy squillion.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:07 AM on October 8, 2008
I'm not depressed, but I'm occasionally bummed that my work devalued that much while guys who play football a few hours a day get paid umtpy squillion.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:07 AM on October 8, 2008
I am a working artist. I have a solo show opening in 2 days at an established gallery. This year I did a 2 month residency at an established arts center. I hang around a fair number of artists. My feelings on this topic is that artists tend to be observers of the world, more than participants in the world, which leads to a certain level of frustration and despair. We aren't all mopey and depressed, we just have a higher sensitivity--and our emotions tend to run closer to the surface than non-artists. And sometimes this really really sucks. We spend a lot of time alone in our studios, in conversations with ourselves--which can get VERY boring, and this extended time of self-examination (which I believe is not very healthy) can easily spiral down into self criticism, as there is no one there to pat us on the back and say "job well done". For some reason, which I can not explain, we are driven to create something where there was nothing. It is a blessing and a curse as we observe our own failures or successes in private. And yes, the poverty thing, combined with being in dirty studio clothes isn't very helpful with being perky most of the time.
posted by tarantula at 7:07 AM on October 8, 2008 [9 favorites]
posted by tarantula at 7:07 AM on October 8, 2008 [9 favorites]
>> Resistance to the social norm is sometimes labelled "illness", unfortunately,
> Is it? or what page of the DSM-IV?
C'mon, you know what I'm trying to say. If you're not happy enough, or responsible enough, or restrained enough, you're regarded as "strange". Probably the most extreme example is how many people still regard homosexuality as an illness.
> The average engineer wants to solve interesting and difficult math problems for money.
Really? This one is content enough with solving interesting and difficult problems, and the money's been a nice plus. I'm hoarding enough specialized knowledge to hopefully stay employed through my 50's, present economy permitting.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:10 AM on October 8, 2008
> Is it? or what page of the DSM-IV?
C'mon, you know what I'm trying to say. If you're not happy enough, or responsible enough, or restrained enough, you're regarded as "strange". Probably the most extreme example is how many people still regard homosexuality as an illness.
> The average engineer wants to solve interesting and difficult math problems for money.
Really? This one is content enough with solving interesting and difficult problems, and the money's been a nice plus. I'm hoarding enough specialized knowledge to hopefully stay employed through my 50's, present economy permitting.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:10 AM on October 8, 2008
What I really hate about this concept is that it ties into the old saw of how antidepressants do not merely stabilize one's mood but rather deaden it. Thus, you then have people who've bought into this idea thinking that they have a choice between seeking treatment and preserving their art and sense of self.
(I was quite irate a few months ago when Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance professed that he would never use antidepressants because he thought it was important to really feel your feelings, or some such claptrap. Sorry, I don't have the quote because I'm not an MCR fan, only an acquaintance of a few, but that was the gist of it. Goddamnit, Way, be as stupid as you want to be, but have some thought for all the teenyboppers who hang on your every word, all right?)
posted by bettafish at 7:13 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
(I was quite irate a few months ago when Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance professed that he would never use antidepressants because he thought it was important to really feel your feelings, or some such claptrap. Sorry, I don't have the quote because I'm not an MCR fan, only an acquaintance of a few, but that was the gist of it. Goddamnit, Way, be as stupid as you want to be, but have some thought for all the teenyboppers who hang on your every word, all right?)
posted by bettafish at 7:13 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Oh, and this anecdote from the third link:
I'm reminded of a singer I saw on the streets of Prague when I was homeless. I was begging for spare change in one of the main squares, it was early winter, and the first real snow had fallen. A pale, thin woman in a cheap quilted coat stood near one of the churches, a man beside her with a little tape player. He set the player down, pushed play and the tinny sound barely reached a few feet... and then she began to sing. Not simply sing, but reach up to heaven with her voice, the purest and most passionate soprano I have ever heard. It was simply transcendent.
A few months later, in the early spring - I saw the woman again. She had a better coat, more color in her cheeks, and the weather was turning warmer - and her voice, though still accomplished and beautiful, lacked that extra dimension.
This is a cute story and all, but ... you know, she could just have been having an off day. It's kind of hard to live up to being the "purest and most passionate soprano [someone's] ever heard," after all. What if she'd just gotten over a cold?
I do agree with the general point of that writer that an artist has to suffer at some point in their life to make interesting art, but everyone suffers. It's called being human. We've all lost someone, been overlooked for something we really wanted, mourned the passing of the best sunset we've ever seen and think we ever will see ... and that's not depression, that's living.
posted by bettafish at 7:21 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
I'm reminded of a singer I saw on the streets of Prague when I was homeless. I was begging for spare change in one of the main squares, it was early winter, and the first real snow had fallen. A pale, thin woman in a cheap quilted coat stood near one of the churches, a man beside her with a little tape player. He set the player down, pushed play and the tinny sound barely reached a few feet... and then she began to sing. Not simply sing, but reach up to heaven with her voice, the purest and most passionate soprano I have ever heard. It was simply transcendent.
A few months later, in the early spring - I saw the woman again. She had a better coat, more color in her cheeks, and the weather was turning warmer - and her voice, though still accomplished and beautiful, lacked that extra dimension.
This is a cute story and all, but ... you know, she could just have been having an off day. It's kind of hard to live up to being the "purest and most passionate soprano [someone's] ever heard," after all. What if she'd just gotten over a cold?
I do agree with the general point of that writer that an artist has to suffer at some point in their life to make interesting art, but everyone suffers. It's called being human. We've all lost someone, been overlooked for something we really wanted, mourned the passing of the best sunset we've ever seen and think we ever will see ... and that's not depression, that's living.
posted by bettafish at 7:21 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
I used to be really depressed. Regular-suicide-contemplation levels of depressed. One of the things that kept me from doing anything about it for a while was the myth that Great Art Comes From Depression; that my artistic drive would waver and fall if I got happy.
Turns out it didn't. I'm a lot happier now and I make more art. I spent most of the past year filling up a gallery with my first show, cranking out a piece every three days for several months. I have a happy relationship with my lovers. Hell, I have lovers. I didn't when I was depressed.
The need to spend a lot of time alone, apart from everyone else, can lead to self-examination and self-deprecation. It can also lead to honing a creative skill. It can come from a lot of things, some of them depression. But you don't have to stay depressed to keep your skills just because you initially retreated from the world because of that.
And yeah. Art typically pays for shit. Being broke is depressing. Worrying about not having insurance is depressing; having to pour all your time and energy into a shitty day job instead of the grand projects gleaming in your mind is really fucking depressing.
posted by egypturnash at 7:21 AM on October 8, 2008 [5 favorites]
Turns out it didn't. I'm a lot happier now and I make more art. I spent most of the past year filling up a gallery with my first show, cranking out a piece every three days for several months. I have a happy relationship with my lovers. Hell, I have lovers. I didn't when I was depressed.
The need to spend a lot of time alone, apart from everyone else, can lead to self-examination and self-deprecation. It can also lead to honing a creative skill. It can come from a lot of things, some of them depression. But you don't have to stay depressed to keep your skills just because you initially retreated from the world because of that.
And yeah. Art typically pays for shit. Being broke is depressing. Worrying about not having insurance is depressing; having to pour all your time and energy into a shitty day job instead of the grand projects gleaming in your mind is really fucking depressing.
posted by egypturnash at 7:21 AM on October 8, 2008 [5 favorites]
But I do know that mental illness SUCKS and it is not something to revere or to treat as an creativity-granting gift.
No, but for instance, ask any of the creative types who suffer from depression, manic or otherwise, and they will tend to say they would rather not sure it. That they feel/know they can't be creative without the condition. Thus those who have to suffer with it, do treat it as acreativeity-gratning gift.
I understand absolutely what you're saying, but also totally understand (and have experience of) why Stephen Fry for instance, says he would rather continue to suffer manic depression, than have that spark that allows him to sit down and write.
posted by opsin at 7:27 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
No, but for instance, ask any of the creative types who suffer from depression, manic or otherwise, and they will tend to say they would rather not sure it. That they feel/know they can't be creative without the condition. Thus those who have to suffer with it, do treat it as acreativeity-gratning gift.
I understand absolutely what you're saying, but also totally understand (and have experience of) why Stephen Fry for instance, says he would rather continue to suffer manic depression, than have that spark that allows him to sit down and write.
posted by opsin at 7:27 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
I really feel that this whole discussion is driven by the rather sloppy problem in English that we use the same terms for a mood, and a major mental illness. It's something I really have to struggle to communicate that an anxiety disorder is something different from just anxiety, or that major depression is something different from just the blues. Butterflies and nerves when I'm approaching a difficult task for the first time is normal anxiety, blind panic with formication and tachycardia when I go shopping is a disorder.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:30 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:30 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Well, opsin, certainly I understand that mindset, too. That's why I'm a bipolar artist who still hasn't sought treatment again after a bad run-in with it in high school. But I'm recognizing more and more with maturity that this is not a healthy way to live, and like egypturnash I'm more productive when I'm not troubled. I think in retrospect that my own romanticizing of mental illness (and its connection/confusion with creativity) is a big part of what's kept me from getting treatment, and it's frustrating.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:52 AM on October 8, 2008
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:52 AM on October 8, 2008
Another engineer coming in to mention that we don't all do it for the money. Good (design) engineering takes quite a bit of creativity, and the payoff isn't really the deposits in your bank account so much as the acquisition of knowledge and the synthesis of that knowledge into something awesome.
If I wanted to solve interesting and difficult math problems, I would have become a mathematician or a physicist. I'm driven by the same impetus as any artist, which is the desire to create. A lot of what I create only exists on paper or in very abstract terms, but it's nice to be able to hold something in my hand (well, nowadays it's more like pointing at that antenna tower behind the airbase fence) and know that I made that.
I have my own creative extracurricular pursuits, but I wouldn't necessarily call myself an artist with respect to getting paid for it. The creative process, though, is exceptionally exhilarating. I won't touch on the effects of mental illness, but I know that if I'm feeling down on myself it's much more difficult to create; that being said, being creative while in a bad mood is usually enough to lift my own spirits.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:52 AM on October 8, 2008 [3 favorites]
If I wanted to solve interesting and difficult math problems, I would have become a mathematician or a physicist. I'm driven by the same impetus as any artist, which is the desire to create. A lot of what I create only exists on paper or in very abstract terms, but it's nice to be able to hold something in my hand (well, nowadays it's more like pointing at that antenna tower behind the airbase fence) and know that I made that.
I have my own creative extracurricular pursuits, but I wouldn't necessarily call myself an artist with respect to getting paid for it. The creative process, though, is exceptionally exhilarating. I won't touch on the effects of mental illness, but I know that if I'm feeling down on myself it's much more difficult to create; that being said, being creative while in a bad mood is usually enough to lift my own spirits.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:52 AM on October 8, 2008 [3 favorites]
THIS IS TOTAL CRAP WHAT A BUNCH OF LIES THERES NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING CREATIVE I WROTE AN ESSAY AND A SONG ABOUT IT LAST NIGHT ON THIS ELECTRIC FLUTE I INVENTED DURING A MARATHON PROTEST/UNICYCLE RACE/ORGY WITH TWO MEMBERS OF ANIMAL COLLECTIVE AND AN ACTUAL PANDA BEAR
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:53 AM on October 8, 2008 [5 favorites]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:53 AM on October 8, 2008 [5 favorites]
or whatever who cares leave me alone
I just want to sit here in the dark
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:55 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
I just want to sit here in the dark
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:55 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
"The arts are more dangerous [than other professions] because they require sensitivity to a large extent ... If you go too far you can pay a price -- you can be too sensitive to live in this world."
Tell it to the meat packers.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:57 AM on October 8, 2008 [7 favorites]
Tell it to the meat packers.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:57 AM on October 8, 2008 [7 favorites]
I'm a journalist, which is as about as much an "observer of the world" as you can get.
And I'm depressed as hell.
It doesn't have anything to do with money - I was lucky enough to land a job where I can use my creative impulses and make money. It's commercial, yes, but it's not evil commercial, and it's intellectually challenging.
But the problem is... well, how do I put this without sounding like the world's biggest a&&hole?
One of the big problems is that I'm perceptive enough to see the problems that exist in society. Not all of them, but I see much more of them than the average person. And I'm smart enough to make the connections to see the solutions to those problems - not perfect solutions, but better than the status quo.
And it frustrates me to no end that it seems like I'm the only one.
And for all the solutions that I see, the worst part of it is that I can't figure out how to get human beings to sit up and take notice of these problems, to see how it affects them, and to see how they could do something about it.
Your choices are to try to do things, no matter how futile things are, and you become bitter, jaded, and cynical over time. Or you could do nothing, but that's surrendering to despair. In the end you're left with Hobson's choice: Hate the world, or hate yourself.
(Myself, I've tried path #A: I've tried to "change the world" by going into journalism... but I'm trying to change career tracks to film/TV entertainment. I'm already too jaded and cynical to believe things can get better.)
I'm not glorifying mental illness. Plenty of people are mentally ill without being smart. Our prisons are filled with those people.
But it's extremely hard to find a smart person that's happy.
posted by BrianBoyko at 7:58 AM on October 8, 2008 [10 favorites]
And I'm depressed as hell.
It doesn't have anything to do with money - I was lucky enough to land a job where I can use my creative impulses and make money. It's commercial, yes, but it's not evil commercial, and it's intellectually challenging.
But the problem is... well, how do I put this without sounding like the world's biggest a&&hole?
One of the big problems is that I'm perceptive enough to see the problems that exist in society. Not all of them, but I see much more of them than the average person. And I'm smart enough to make the connections to see the solutions to those problems - not perfect solutions, but better than the status quo.
And it frustrates me to no end that it seems like I'm the only one.
And for all the solutions that I see, the worst part of it is that I can't figure out how to get human beings to sit up and take notice of these problems, to see how it affects them, and to see how they could do something about it.
Your choices are to try to do things, no matter how futile things are, and you become bitter, jaded, and cynical over time. Or you could do nothing, but that's surrendering to despair. In the end you're left with Hobson's choice: Hate the world, or hate yourself.
(Myself, I've tried path #A: I've tried to "change the world" by going into journalism... but I'm trying to change career tracks to film/TV entertainment. I'm already too jaded and cynical to believe things can get better.)
I'm not glorifying mental illness. Plenty of people are mentally ill without being smart. Our prisons are filled with those people.
But it's extremely hard to find a smart person that's happy.
posted by BrianBoyko at 7:58 AM on October 8, 2008 [10 favorites]
Resistance to the social norm is sometimes labelled "illness", unfortunately,
Is it? or what page of the DSM-IV?
This one.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:08 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
Is it? or what page of the DSM-IV?
This one.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:08 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
That aside, it seems to me that most people discussing this issue get it backwards.
Making art is the result of thinking about things in a certain way, not as a symptom, but (as someone pointed out upthread) a kind of self-medication (a very sophisticated one, much more effective than Paxil). At least in my experience (and in my interpretation of the great, discredited but beautiful aesthetic theories of Mssr Jung.)
You have a crazy manic/depressive thought, you make the art, the thought is exhumed, if not cured. It's more than a coping mechanism, but it does function as one, among other things. When you can't make art you get more and more depressed, not vice-versa. Like it or not, there are plenty of arteests who just don't have any reason to create if they take meds and feel better, not because they lack inspiration, but because they no longer need it in order to not off themselves. I'd make that trade in a micro-second, personally. I'd rather be lucky than good.
(on preview, what Phalene said is better, shorter and less pompous. SIGH, BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:08 AM on October 8, 2008
Making art is the result of thinking about things in a certain way, not as a symptom, but (as someone pointed out upthread) a kind of self-medication (a very sophisticated one, much more effective than Paxil). At least in my experience (and in my interpretation of the great, discredited but beautiful aesthetic theories of Mssr Jung.)
You have a crazy manic/depressive thought, you make the art, the thought is exhumed, if not cured. It's more than a coping mechanism, but it does function as one, among other things. When you can't make art you get more and more depressed, not vice-versa. Like it or not, there are plenty of arteests who just don't have any reason to create if they take meds and feel better, not because they lack inspiration, but because they no longer need it in order to not off themselves. I'd make that trade in a micro-second, personally. I'd rather be lucky than good.
(on preview, what Phalene said is better, shorter and less pompous. SIGH, BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:08 AM on October 8, 2008
I did my stint as an artist or rather an art major in college. At the time I thought I was mostly happy, and looking back I think I was, but there was always a low-level disappointed feeling with the world. For me, it was largely centered around the frustration of not being able to get the things in my head to exist in the world. To have the beautiful visions and the frustration of not having the skill or the tools to make them come into being was maddening.
I think that's a frustration that leads to depression in a number of creative folks. To have an idea, a thought, an image or a sound in your head and to be unable to get it out there has got to lead to all sorts of dark places in your brain. It did in my world. I dabble in artistic endeavors but I'm much happier creating things that I know I have the skill set for. Of course, I've also learned that there are just some things in your brain will have to stay there forever. Some ideas and visions just can't be replicated, and even if they were perfectly replicated, it wouldn't mean the same to anyone but you.
posted by teleri025 at 8:17 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
I think that's a frustration that leads to depression in a number of creative folks. To have an idea, a thought, an image or a sound in your head and to be unable to get it out there has got to lead to all sorts of dark places in your brain. It did in my world. I dabble in artistic endeavors but I'm much happier creating things that I know I have the skill set for. Of course, I've also learned that there are just some things in your brain will have to stay there forever. Some ideas and visions just can't be replicated, and even if they were perfectly replicated, it wouldn't mean the same to anyone but you.
posted by teleri025 at 8:17 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
I agree that there is a "sloppy problem in English" that doesn't express the gravity of major mental/emotional affictions versus just feeling punk.
Anyone who has a debilitating and chronic disease of any kind is most likely faced with the choice of taking meds that have undesireable side effects. Chemotherapy for cancer, for instance, oftentimes makes you feel much, much sicker than you did with just the diagnosis.
And so, the psychotropic drugs available and widely prescribed often produce intolerable side effects that interfere with whatever your occupation might be, from housewife (think 'mother's little helper') to creative genius. (Not that these aren't equivalent terms in many cases).
So, faced with an illness, one balances the benefit of the treatment offered, if any, against what that treatment does to one's quality of life. People make all sorts of choices based on their best information.
posted by Yimji at 8:20 AM on October 8, 2008
Anyone who has a debilitating and chronic disease of any kind is most likely faced with the choice of taking meds that have undesireable side effects. Chemotherapy for cancer, for instance, oftentimes makes you feel much, much sicker than you did with just the diagnosis.
And so, the psychotropic drugs available and widely prescribed often produce intolerable side effects that interfere with whatever your occupation might be, from housewife (think 'mother's little helper') to creative genius. (Not that these aren't equivalent terms in many cases).
So, faced with an illness, one balances the benefit of the treatment offered, if any, against what that treatment does to one's quality of life. People make all sorts of choices based on their best information.
posted by Yimji at 8:20 AM on October 8, 2008
I'm not sure there's a definitive answer as to whether creative individuals are more inclined to be depressed (and vice-versa). However, I do think that happiness and/or success often have a nullifying effect upon the creative drive (look at all the artists who have lost their way after they made it to the top). When I met my wife-to-be and as a result became a much happier person, my will to write pretty much dropped through the floor.
Your mileage will, of course, vary.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:35 AM on October 8, 2008
Your mileage will, of course, vary.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:35 AM on October 8, 2008
Again, I find it amusing that in spite of the fact that police officers have downright scary rates of major depression, PTSD, substance abuse and successful attempts at suicide, we never seem to ponder the question of whether those forms of mental illness are essential or even advantageous to a career in law enforcement.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:36 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:36 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
During an episode of Get Smart, Maxwell Smart is training to be a safecracker. He sandpapers his fingers. His teacher asks him if his fingers are sensitive yet. Max answers, "Two are sensitive, three are bleeding." The trick behind being an artist is to maintain three sensitive and only two bleeding.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:54 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:54 AM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
BrianBoyko writes "One of the big problems is that I'm perceptive enough to see the problems that exist in society. Not all of them, but I see much more of them than the average person. And I'm smart enough to make the connections to see the solutions to those problems - not perfect solutions, but better than the status quo.
"And it frustrates me to no end that it seems like I'm the only one."
Isn't that sort of typical for the profession? At least as far as I understand it ...
posted by krinklyfig at 9:00 AM on October 8, 2008
"And it frustrates me to no end that it seems like I'm the only one."
Isn't that sort of typical for the profession? At least as far as I understand it ...
posted by krinklyfig at 9:00 AM on October 8, 2008
It amazes me that of all the drugs people are willing to try, they're so adverse to the idea of taking the ones that might make them better. I was one too for a while.
I'm not in a creative field professionally, but I do have creative pursuits. For a long time I've struggled with anxiety, possibly depression, but I never took any medications, for fear of "losing who I am".
I spent about 5 years in therapy, which alleviated my depression to some extent, but I struggled with getting things done, completing tasks, meeting people, whatever. I always just chalked it up to my being lazy or incompetent. After suffering a full-blown panic when attempting to study something out of a book, I sought to examine my behavior to figure out what was happening. I had a tendency to distract myself constantly, so I talked to my doctor about ADD. I tried ADD meds, but they were little more than a strong cup of coffee. They didn't help me get things done, but they illustrated something I had missed before: A fear response. The idea of just doing things, task completion, scared me, for no rational reason. Not just studying or work, but even deciding to pull out my iPod and listen to it at my desk, made me twitch and check my email just.... one more time.
I was still afraid of "losing my personality" to mood-altering pills, but I figured what good is a so-called vibrant, creative personality that never does anything but distract itself? I went back to my doctor, and talked to her about anxiety. I got perscribed some pills, and after about a week or two of adjustment, I lost that errant fear, and never looked back.
I'm still the same "person" I was before, I'm just much more efficient. I don't have that Windows Vista "Warning" message popping up in my brain every time I try to do anything. I'm not making excuses about how 3 hours isn't "enough time" to take care of a simple errand, I'm not gripped with fear when I see the voicemail icon on my phone, regardless of who the message is from, I no longer have to steel my reserves and summon every ounce of courage I can muster to tell someone "No", and I'm no longer crippled with guilt when I do.
I think the biggest problem, as illustrated by a commenter or two, is conflating "Depression" with "feeling sad" or "Anxiety" with "feeling nervous", and the inability or unwillingness for most people to admit that these "mere feelings" are a serious problem, one they cannot fix by themselves. More poisonous is the kind of "street cred" these disorders carry with them, that somehow the more crazy you can weather, the more "genuine" or "artistic" you are.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 9:10 AM on October 8, 2008 [7 favorites]
I'm not in a creative field professionally, but I do have creative pursuits. For a long time I've struggled with anxiety, possibly depression, but I never took any medications, for fear of "losing who I am".
I spent about 5 years in therapy, which alleviated my depression to some extent, but I struggled with getting things done, completing tasks, meeting people, whatever. I always just chalked it up to my being lazy or incompetent. After suffering a full-blown panic when attempting to study something out of a book, I sought to examine my behavior to figure out what was happening. I had a tendency to distract myself constantly, so I talked to my doctor about ADD. I tried ADD meds, but they were little more than a strong cup of coffee. They didn't help me get things done, but they illustrated something I had missed before: A fear response. The idea of just doing things, task completion, scared me, for no rational reason. Not just studying or work, but even deciding to pull out my iPod and listen to it at my desk, made me twitch and check my email just.... one more time.
I was still afraid of "losing my personality" to mood-altering pills, but I figured what good is a so-called vibrant, creative personality that never does anything but distract itself? I went back to my doctor, and talked to her about anxiety. I got perscribed some pills, and after about a week or two of adjustment, I lost that errant fear, and never looked back.
I'm still the same "person" I was before, I'm just much more efficient. I don't have that Windows Vista "Warning" message popping up in my brain every time I try to do anything. I'm not making excuses about how 3 hours isn't "enough time" to take care of a simple errand, I'm not gripped with fear when I see the voicemail icon on my phone, regardless of who the message is from, I no longer have to steel my reserves and summon every ounce of courage I can muster to tell someone "No", and I'm no longer crippled with guilt when I do.
I think the biggest problem, as illustrated by a commenter or two, is conflating "Depression" with "feeling sad" or "Anxiety" with "feeling nervous", and the inability or unwillingness for most people to admit that these "mere feelings" are a serious problem, one they cannot fix by themselves. More poisonous is the kind of "street cred" these disorders carry with them, that somehow the more crazy you can weather, the more "genuine" or "artistic" you are.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 9:10 AM on October 8, 2008 [7 favorites]
It amazes me that of all the drugs people are willing to try, they're so adverse to the idea of taking the ones that might make them better.
Maybe because the first kind is perceived as "optional and for recreation only", but the second kind is perceived as a de-facto way of admitting that You Have A Problem?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:19 AM on October 8, 2008
Maybe because the first kind is perceived as "optional and for recreation only", but the second kind is perceived as a de-facto way of admitting that You Have A Problem?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:19 AM on October 8, 2008
I've worked as an office and I've worked as a stand up comic. I know that while I'm happier doing stand up I'm also realistically more crazy seeming at least. Having a normal job puts some pretty serious limits on how kooky you can get. Spending 8 hours a day doing your best normal impression can definitely make you more normal. I don't consider myself mentally ill or anything. I'm a pretty happy and I contribute something to society that people seem to value as much as my data entry abilities. But if you were to talk to me now and talk to me when I had my day job you would hear a difference in my voice and I would seem like a weirder guy. Because I can be weirder. It's allowed. Part of my job is to say unacceptable things and I am rewarded for it. That effects you. There are times when I have to sort of think to myself, am I actually ok? Like am I in trouble for deviating this much from what is normal in how I conduct myself. Is it reasonable to put people in a position to hear me talk and then to fuck with their expectations and leave some of them happy and others just frustrated? Is that an ok thing to do?
I think say Michael Jackson. If he had to work as a real estate agent would be less of a weird guy. He would have to practice fitting in with people and earning their trust on a normal human level. But he went from child to grown up without ever having really had to fit in. That probably fucks with you.
I don't think fitting in is this gold standard I don't think it is something to aspire to but there is something to be said for it people respond to incentives if you are rewarded for being normal you will be more normal. If you are rewarded for being abnormal you will be abnormal. Lots, hell probably most of the things that are normal are good things to be so being too abnormal is a problem.
posted by I Foody at 9:23 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
I think say Michael Jackson. If he had to work as a real estate agent would be less of a weird guy. He would have to practice fitting in with people and earning their trust on a normal human level. But he went from child to grown up without ever having really had to fit in. That probably fucks with you.
I don't think fitting in is this gold standard I don't think it is something to aspire to but there is something to be said for it people respond to incentives if you are rewarded for being normal you will be more normal. If you are rewarded for being abnormal you will be abnormal. Lots, hell probably most of the things that are normal are good things to be so being too abnormal is a problem.
posted by I Foody at 9:23 AM on October 8, 2008 [4 favorites]
I'm surprise nobody has yet mentioned Johns Hopkins professor of psychiatry Kay Redfield Jamison's Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. It usually comes up in discussions like these, as she makes a fairly compelling case for the link.
posted by Roach at 9:27 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Roach at 9:27 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
To spend weeks, months, and years of my life, tens of thousands of dollars in equipment, hundreds of dollars in materials and who knows how many pints of blood, sweat and tears to create something that is shown to people who look at it for twenty seconds and say, "wow, that's really awesome!" then glance at the price tag, blink, and walk away.... who maybe are given an opportunity to buy a print or a reproduction for a trivial amount of money and still walk away... and then go spend a non-trivial amount of money to eat yet another trite meal at a chain restaurant and buy yet another shitty movie on dvd just for something to waste an evening on ... to those people, I say .... you are already dead. You suck up to the mainstream marketing teat, eat the same pap over and over because it's not scary and keeps you barely, barely alive and lets you forget how much life sucks, and I know you will fade away like footprints on the beach having lived a life as empty as you've made my bank account with your stingy mindlessness. Please just get a fucking wire put into your head, jack in a D-cell and waste your soul away in empty electronic bliss -- what more do you really need?
It's COLD in my studio today, bitch, and I'm out of coffee.
Not really that bitter, but it is fun to rant occasionally.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:30 AM on October 8, 2008 [7 favorites]
It's COLD in my studio today, bitch, and I'm out of coffee.
Not really that bitter, but it is fun to rant occasionally.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:30 AM on October 8, 2008 [7 favorites]
I think there's plenty of professions more dangerous than the arts.
There are links between creativity and manic depression (bipolar). This is not to say that every creative person is biopolar or every person with bipolar disorder is creative, but there do seem to be some pretty concrete links. Kay Redfield Jamison (quoted in this FPP's first link) has studied these links extensively. You can read about them in her book Touched With Fire.
Here's a summation.
On Preview: Roach beat me to it!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 9:32 AM on October 8, 2008
There are links between creativity and manic depression (bipolar). This is not to say that every creative person is biopolar or every person with bipolar disorder is creative, but there do seem to be some pretty concrete links. Kay Redfield Jamison (quoted in this FPP's first link) has studied these links extensively. You can read about them in her book Touched With Fire.
Here's a summation.
On Preview: Roach beat me to it!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 9:32 AM on October 8, 2008
Argh.
posted by loquacious at 9:41 AM on October 8, 2008
posted by loquacious at 9:41 AM on October 8, 2008
I hate to be all dickish and shit but saying that art is one of the more dangerous professions kind of doesn't resonate with those of us who risk getting stabbed on a daily basis.
posted by The Straightener at 9:54 AM on October 8, 2008 [3 favorites]
posted by The Straightener at 9:54 AM on October 8, 2008 [3 favorites]
A paraphrase of Joseph Campbell: "Mystics swim in the same waters where schizophrenics drown."
Perhaps this is why there is so much passion (and confusion, and compassion) on both sides of the 'arts and mental illness' discussion. Mania, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety -- and how many other conditions? -- also figure on this map.
Creative states involve letting go of the same boundaries that also keep you safe.
posted by namasaya at 9:55 AM on October 8, 2008 [3 favorites]
Perhaps this is why there is so much passion (and confusion, and compassion) on both sides of the 'arts and mental illness' discussion. Mania, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety -- and how many other conditions? -- also figure on this map.
Creative states involve letting go of the same boundaries that also keep you safe.
posted by namasaya at 9:55 AM on October 8, 2008 [3 favorites]
I don't have much comprehension on what it is to be in the 'fine' arts. But the performing arts are another matter. How can actors not get a bit mad? "The show must go on"! It matters not one little bit what is happening in your own life. You must become that other person, the one you are paid to become, and experience their emotions, and display their emotions. Method acting is easily a method to madness.
Then there is music. It's still often the same thing as acting. You have to experience and live the music, in order to give it to the audience. What, your spouse split? Your pet died? Too bad, smile at the people and sing that song you wrote when you were happy. It's what the people paid to hear. Can't pull that together? Oh, well, we have a little something to help with that.
Even during reasonable times, you do your part, night after night. You ride the waves the way you must, and it works. You walk off the stage feeling more energized than when you started. You know perfectly well why you do what you do. And then the end of the tour or the end of the show comes, and it's like running into a god damned wall, hard. Maybe those other folks are all "Woopee! Let's go to the party!". What?! Dahling, take care of thefans party, I want to be alone.
But the point is, here are too creative pursuits where being emotional is part of the job. Probably it isn't healthy. Not unlikely, it isn't really "bi-polar". It's not physiological. It's deliberate. You have to will yourself on to the rollercoaster. After all, what could be more uplifting than to sink deep into the depression of some character and give a brilliant performance?
posted by Goofyy at 10:06 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Then there is music. It's still often the same thing as acting. You have to experience and live the music, in order to give it to the audience. What, your spouse split? Your pet died? Too bad, smile at the people and sing that song you wrote when you were happy. It's what the people paid to hear. Can't pull that together? Oh, well, we have a little something to help with that.
Even during reasonable times, you do your part, night after night. You ride the waves the way you must, and it works. You walk off the stage feeling more energized than when you started. You know perfectly well why you do what you do. And then the end of the tour or the end of the show comes, and it's like running into a god damned wall, hard. Maybe those other folks are all "Woopee! Let's go to the party!". What?! Dahling, take care of the
But the point is, here are too creative pursuits where being emotional is part of the job. Probably it isn't healthy. Not unlikely, it isn't really "bi-polar". It's not physiological. It's deliberate. You have to will yourself on to the rollercoaster. After all, what could be more uplifting than to sink deep into the depression of some character and give a brilliant performance?
posted by Goofyy at 10:06 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
... and that literature student I used to sleep with back when I was a depressed writer, who said to me "Ooh, you're so depressed, I'm sure one day you're gonna end up in the Norton anthology of literature."
Fuck her.
posted by yoHighness at 10:13 AM on October 8, 2008
Fuck her.
posted by yoHighness at 10:13 AM on October 8, 2008
What is this we're trying to put a finger on....
Here's how it goes. You wake up one day, early in your life, three, four years old, and the world is bewildering and beautiful. You think God, when he invented cities, must have made yours first. And the town where your grandmother lives he made second. And at the intersection at the end of your road, which is named something like Plum Creek, like in a storybook, your parents turn the car left to go into the first town that God made, and turn the car right to go to the second.
And then, something happens. The children at school are not very nice, but maybe one boy, or girl, is, and you love that one, and you bring them candy, and you hide in a corner of the playground together. And your parents divorce, or their unhappiness dawns on you, and you change houses, or the house changes from within, and you realize that there is some murderous force behind time and growing older, and you lie awake at night, unable to sleep, still so young, but already staring at the night behind the window of your bedroom and trying to think out what makes you so afraid. You not only personify your stuffed animals and toys, you befriend them, you have long conversations at night with them, and the dog sleeping under the coffee table makes you want to sleep under the coffee table too. There is maybe one older person in your life, in this case my grandmother, who understands you, and tells you stories, and asks you how you feel, and whenever you love someone you will always be trying to find that place of trust with someone else, and never really will.
And somehow this early life is much clearer in memory, and at the time it was experienced, than adolescence. Adolescence is the dull gray of early morning drive to school and the smell of old classrooms and the fear of lunchtime and its cruelties. It is that and trying to push it all down push it all back and tighten and not take risk and try to make friends and try to find out what makes other kids laugh and whether you want to bully or be bullied. And then you go home and play with your sex and watch TV and that's that.
This time of life is so pinched and strained and dead and grey because you are unable to understand that because as a child you were so sensitive and heard sounds in your ear at night and hallucinated movements in the dark and had wild dreams of amber-colored rooms and nocturnal orchards and because you listened to every word the adults said from the backseat of the car and because you never stopped thinking and never slept during naps and because you looked out the window at the suburban landscape passing and because somehow from all this you had an early sense of magic and belief that never really left you until you were heartbroken in college, because of all that you're too sensitive and so is your mother, whose eyes well with tears at every wrong turn, who rocks silently in her rocking chair with her arms folded because God made her born in Texas by mistake.
And what else can you do to differentiate all this loss of time and the burden of feeling, how else can you redeem that in the world than to create. Because more so than the fleeting and deceptive pleasures of other people, and far more so than what most people consider enjoyable pastimes, the only real pleasure, subtle but visceral and flowering from within, the only real stake you can make in life that is yours and yours only, is to create art. When the love of another, whose beauty and sweetness promised to solve you forever, to make you normal and whole, falls through, and you are left with this unbearable rip in your heart, what can you do but try to give this unnameable feeling a name, to put word to your suffering, so foolish, to give it dignity, to defend yourself where there is no court of appeal but art? And how else, when you feel you are alone in being overwhelmed by the perceptual splendor of life, that seems ignored, not felt at all, by those around you, except in the most aesthetic and artificial forms of removal (furnishings, flower pots), how else do you explain that all the ugly and hard, not just the sun-drenched beauty of convention, is beautiful, that the tensions of a woman's face, the phenomena of an everyday personality whose motives you can detect through their dissimulation innocent or otherwise, that the mere process and product of man striving and the mere existence of what is is all such a marvel to you? How else do you get a grip on time that won't be held? How else do you whisper these things to another? How else can such a person leave what they've left behind? How else can they work their gift and protect it from the vulgar shrugs of a debauched society that scorns them? Day after day after day. This isn't depression, there is no causality here to be defined; it is what it is, being open-eyed, alive.
posted by bukharin at 10:19 AM on October 8, 2008 [41 favorites]
Anecdotally, I've noticed that my creative output is greatest when I am emerging from low periods towards normalcy. During low periods, I don't accomplish much at all. Now, I'm just a regular guy with intermittent depressive episodes. But these observations are consistent with studies showing that people with a bipolar disorder have higher creative output overall, but are not especially creative at their manic peaks or depressive nadirs.
The periods of emotional transition are, I think, where the action is.
This should all be qualified with a note that this may all be culture-specific. Many cultures of non-European heritage don't really have a category or schema for "emotionally-volatile creative person"- emotional volatility and creativity are not, for most of the globe, linked in people's minds.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:51 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
The periods of emotional transition are, I think, where the action is.
This should all be qualified with a note that this may all be culture-specific. Many cultures of non-European heritage don't really have a category or schema for "emotionally-volatile creative person"- emotional volatility and creativity are not, for most of the globe, linked in people's minds.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:51 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
I tend to side with the confirmation bias camp on this one. I don't see much hard, statistical proof of a causal link, just anecdotage and rumination. Artists aren't more predisposed to mental illness, they're just better equipped with the tools to articulate it. It's not as if the wards of psychiatric hospitals are awash with painters, pianists and poets (although engagement with creative pursuits is often encouraged as part of a wider therapeutic process) - it's just much harder (though, I submit, not impossible) to express your misery/disillusionment/garish psychotic visions through the medium of accountancy.
posted by RokkitNite at 11:02 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by RokkitNite at 11:02 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
I hate to be all dickish and shit but saying that art is one of the more dangerous professions kind of doesn't resonate with those of us who risk getting stabbed on a daily basis.
The only thing that artists love wanking over more than art is being an artist.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:34 AM on October 8, 2008
The only thing that artists love wanking over more than art is being an artist.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:34 AM on October 8, 2008
I agree strongly with Jpfed. It's the swings in feeling that promote the greatest creative output for me.
But it's extremely hard to find a smart person that's happy.
I hate this old canard. After many years, I can say that I'm happy, and I know my IQ is higher than my brother's (and he's a smart guy ;). "Smart" can be defined in many ways, but I honestly think that most intelligent people can find a way to be happy.
I think it's possible to be aware of the world, know how much it sucks to be a human being in it, and empathize with the creatures of the world, all the while still maintaining your sanity and "happiness." The human mind has a seemingly endless ability to do whatever we want it to do. Or so I have found.
Being happy is simply a matter of willing yourself to be happy, and I think nearly everyone, regardless of IQ, can master that skill. Meditation has helped me personally.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:47 AM on October 8, 2008
But it's extremely hard to find a smart person that's happy.
I hate this old canard. After many years, I can say that I'm happy, and I know my IQ is higher than my brother's (and he's a smart guy ;). "Smart" can be defined in many ways, but I honestly think that most intelligent people can find a way to be happy.
I think it's possible to be aware of the world, know how much it sucks to be a human being in it, and empathize with the creatures of the world, all the while still maintaining your sanity and "happiness." The human mind has a seemingly endless ability to do whatever we want it to do. Or so I have found.
Being happy is simply a matter of willing yourself to be happy, and I think nearly everyone, regardless of IQ, can master that skill. Meditation has helped me personally.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:47 AM on October 8, 2008
What is this we're trying to put a finger on....
Holy crap, bukharin. That was amazing, inspiring, succinct, heartfelt and just so damn real and true. Thank you! You captured an almost imperceptable essence of something elusive yet, by your words, a little more tangible now. I need a kleenex.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 11:49 AM on October 8, 2008
Holy crap, bukharin. That was amazing, inspiring, succinct, heartfelt and just so damn real and true. Thank you! You captured an almost imperceptable essence of something elusive yet, by your words, a little more tangible now. I need a kleenex.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 11:49 AM on October 8, 2008
Yes, meditation is better than self-medication, a trap this depressed artist has fallen into on way too many occasions...
Artists are more prone to emotional/mental problems; I have known hundreds of artists and hundreds of non-artists, and there is no doubt in my mind which group has suffered more from mental difficulties. (Yes, I realize this is "anecdotal evidence," but it has convinced me, anyway.)
I have read every comment above and am no closer to understanding why those who produce sounds and pictures and stories that gladden hearts can be so sad...but, then, there is more literature about struggles, death, and problematic lives than there is about joyful revelation. Art, I hope, can help us learn how to deal with difficulties in life through vicarious participation in its symbolic representation.
On a personal note, as a musician, there appears to be no relation at all between my current mood and the quality of the music I produce. Misery can sometimes add to the intensity of my performance, but happiness - even transcendence - can lubricate my fingers in another kind of way.
posted by kozad at 12:18 PM on October 8, 2008
Artists are more prone to emotional/mental problems; I have known hundreds of artists and hundreds of non-artists, and there is no doubt in my mind which group has suffered more from mental difficulties. (Yes, I realize this is "anecdotal evidence," but it has convinced me, anyway.)
I have read every comment above and am no closer to understanding why those who produce sounds and pictures and stories that gladden hearts can be so sad...but, then, there is more literature about struggles, death, and problematic lives than there is about joyful revelation. Art, I hope, can help us learn how to deal with difficulties in life through vicarious participation in its symbolic representation.
On a personal note, as a musician, there appears to be no relation at all between my current mood and the quality of the music I produce. Misery can sometimes add to the intensity of my performance, but happiness - even transcendence - can lubricate my fingers in another kind of way.
posted by kozad at 12:18 PM on October 8, 2008
I don't know if it's available in full here, but a smart Jesuit gave me a photocopy of Anne Sexton: Light Up The Cave when I was in high school. It didn't end my Baudelaire-Bukowski-Rimbaud-Sexton-Plath bender, but it inoculated me against romanticizing substance abuse and depression per se.
posted by everichon at 12:51 PM on October 8, 2008
posted by everichon at 12:51 PM on October 8, 2008
And Seekerofsplendor just confirmed Pope Guilty's statement.
When I get fucking frustrated with fucking code that will not fucking work because my fucking tools are all fucking pieces of shit and I want to go kill something, I go and make a drawing or two. And viceversa.
I was a lot unhappier when I was only an designer or only an engineer.
posted by dirty lies at 12:54 PM on October 8, 2008
When I get fucking frustrated with fucking code that will not fucking work because my fucking tools are all fucking pieces of shit and I want to go kill something, I go and make a drawing or two. And viceversa.
I was a lot unhappier when I was only an designer or only an engineer.
posted by dirty lies at 12:54 PM on October 8, 2008
since feeling is first
e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
posted by ohshenandoah at 1:56 PM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
posted by ohshenandoah at 1:56 PM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
You know, I've always attributed the link between people who create art and people with bipolar disorder to manic episodes. I mean, if I didn't have to sleep for days, had endless inspiration and new ideas, and felt like I couldn't sit still, I might create some (more) art than I do. I don't think the link is necessarily between creativity and mental illness, but simply due to people who are bipolar actually creating more of the art they think up.
Also, for every amazingly productive and creative person with mental illness that I know, I know at least one who used to create art but whose illness has interfered in their abilities. And three more who aren't creative at all. It's like the people who say (and I hear lots of people say this) that all people with schizophrenia are really, really intelligent. Yeah, sure, I know lots of schizophrenics who are really intelligent or at least appear really intelligent. But I also know a lot who are of significantly below average intelligence, if not actually MR.
In other words, selection bias.
posted by threeturtles at 2:29 PM on October 8, 2008
Also, for every amazingly productive and creative person with mental illness that I know, I know at least one who used to create art but whose illness has interfered in their abilities. And three more who aren't creative at all. It's like the people who say (and I hear lots of people say this) that all people with schizophrenia are really, really intelligent. Yeah, sure, I know lots of schizophrenics who are really intelligent or at least appear really intelligent. But I also know a lot who are of significantly below average intelligence, if not actually MR.
In other words, selection bias.
posted by threeturtles at 2:29 PM on October 8, 2008
i favorited ohshenandoah's ee cummings poem.
i think i am too fey (2a) for this post.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:40 PM on October 8, 2008
i think i am too fey (2a) for this post.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:40 PM on October 8, 2008
What I find interesting about this idea is the intersection between art and science. See mathemeticians who committed suicide, and scientists who committed suicide. That is, it seems that creativity, rather than art or emotion is the consistant element.
posted by vapidave at 2:41 PM on October 8, 2008
posted by vapidave at 2:41 PM on October 8, 2008
This thread is depressing, because it's made me revisit thinking about David Foster Wallace.
posted by rokusan at 2:45 PM on October 8, 2008
posted by rokusan at 2:45 PM on October 8, 2008
I think Creativity is kinda like Wisdom. Wisdom (not in the traditional sense of the word for this case), being simplifying complexity to fundamental values and applying it to many areas of life using a lot of lateral thinking.. But without maturity you simply lose the plot. and start sounding like an idiot.
posted by lacol at 3:37 PM on October 8, 2008
posted by lacol at 3:37 PM on October 8, 2008
once, in fiji, i came upon a man who was struggling with a large white owl. i asked him what he would do with it and he replied "I'm going to eat it". i offered to take him down the road a bit to a place where i promised to buy him a chicken if he would release the owl. "i have a yard full of chickens", he said. "what i want is an owl."
posted by kitchenrat at 3:50 PM on October 8, 2008 [5 favorites]
posted by kitchenrat at 3:50 PM on October 8, 2008 [5 favorites]
This post and your comments make me very happy. I'm going to go drink a beer.
posted by dirty lies at 4:03 PM on October 8, 2008
posted by dirty lies at 4:03 PM on October 8, 2008
Being happy is simply a matter of willing yourself to be happy
I despise people who think this and even worse those who say this, because it makes unhappiness out to be the fault of the sufferer. The idea is that they secretly want to be miserable.
Seriously, fuck this attitude. It is divorced from reality. It's this kind of shit that keeps people from getting the antidepressants that might save them from suicide.
How nice for you, that you can magically will your way to happiness. There are millions of other people who cannot. You might want to recognize that they exist.
posted by marble at 4:03 PM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
I despise people who think this and even worse those who say this, because it makes unhappiness out to be the fault of the sufferer. The idea is that they secretly want to be miserable.
Seriously, fuck this attitude. It is divorced from reality. It's this kind of shit that keeps people from getting the antidepressants that might save them from suicide.
How nice for you, that you can magically will your way to happiness. There are millions of other people who cannot. You might want to recognize that they exist.
posted by marble at 4:03 PM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Being happy is simply a matter of willing yourself to be happy
Otherwise known as "cognitive dissonance."
Also not a very healthy sate.
posted by tkchrist at 4:08 PM on October 8, 2008
Otherwise known as "cognitive dissonance."
Also not a very healthy sate.
posted by tkchrist at 4:08 PM on October 8, 2008
I'm torn between two things. I can waxing poetic like bukharin before me about the altogether tormenting and overpowering state of mind where your senses describe the world to you in a way that can only be expressed through flowing poetry, like it's tearing itself out of your mind and giving reality to an entity separate from yourself, entity that will live on long after you're gone. Or I can speak rationally on a topic that interests me on an intellectual level. Since the poetic bit has already been done, I'll mention that "researchers at Harvard" (don't you love when newspapers do that?) are about to publish a study that examines the relationship between predisposition to negative mood, current negative mood and creativity. They did not tackle mental illness per se and its correlation with artistic genius (correlation is not causation, anyways), but actually constructed an experiment that showed independent raters ascribing higher creativity rating to collages created by individuals susceptible to low moods and induced with a low mood prior to working on their collages. I was impressed. However, they are very fuzzy about explaining their findings. No one theory seems to fit.
Here is a pdf file of the study.
posted by Shusha at 4:36 PM on October 8, 2008
Here is a pdf file of the study.
posted by Shusha at 4:36 PM on October 8, 2008
Mental illness does NOT make for better art. Drugs and alcohol make for better art.
posted by jonmc at 4:49 PM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by jonmc at 4:49 PM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
Call me when they do the study about mental illnesses and the entirely less glamorous world of IT. Call me ... but don't be angry if I might not feel like talking to anyone on the phone.
posted by adipocere at 6:42 PM on October 8, 2008
posted by adipocere at 6:42 PM on October 8, 2008
Has anyone talked about the link between creative types and cubicles and subsequent depression? Because I think that might be a significant factor.
Then again, I'm just a cubicle-dwelling creative, what do I know...
posted by limeonaire at 8:28 PM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
Then again, I'm just a cubicle-dwelling creative, what do I know...
posted by limeonaire at 8:28 PM on October 8, 2008 [2 favorites]
cubicle-dwelling creative
Oy veh, this is another can of worms!
posted by kozad at 8:40 PM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Oy veh, this is another can of worms!
posted by kozad at 8:40 PM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Has anyone talked about the link between creative types and cubicles and subsequent depression? Because I think that might be a significant factor.
Then write (or sculpt or paint or whatever) about what you've lerned from the cubicle. Kevin Smith made movies about what he learned behind the counter and it worked out well for him (love him or loathe him, he wins points in the 'write what you know' department)
posted by jonmc at 8:52 PM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
Then write (or sculpt or paint or whatever) about what you've lerned from the cubicle. Kevin Smith made movies about what he learned behind the counter and it worked out well for him (love him or loathe him, he wins points in the 'write what you know' department)
posted by jonmc at 8:52 PM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
"What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art." (Dali.)
There are some artists who aren't crazy and aren't on drugs. There are even a few cutting edge artists so, though I'm having some trouble naming one.
As someone who relies on a reliable connection to asanity to generate art, I have never understood how sane people do it. What do you do in front of a scary white page?
I feel most of these comments missed the important point of the article, the fact that's a bombshell for me - the brooding part of your personality is also the one that makes you an artist. That's a fantastic discovery and really useful. That means that I can take the strategy of "only brood on art" - "force" my brooding self to do the art thing. That's where it all gets done anyway but perhaps I can change those insomnias to art reveries! (I'm very lucky - I have enough work to do that if I can't get my art out I can at least exhaust myself that way.)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:56 PM on October 8, 2008
There are some artists who aren't crazy and aren't on drugs. There are even a few cutting edge artists so, though I'm having some trouble naming one.
As someone who relies on a reliable connection to asanity to generate art, I have never understood how sane people do it. What do you do in front of a scary white page?
I feel most of these comments missed the important point of the article, the fact that's a bombshell for me - the brooding part of your personality is also the one that makes you an artist. That's a fantastic discovery and really useful. That means that I can take the strategy of "only brood on art" - "force" my brooding self to do the art thing. That's where it all gets done anyway but perhaps I can change those insomnias to art reveries! (I'm very lucky - I have enough work to do that if I can't get my art out I can at least exhaust myself that way.)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:56 PM on October 8, 2008
Wow. In my experience, the connection between emotional disorders and creativity (and I include mathematics and science in here as well) is so obvious as to be non-debatable. It's like saying that longshoremen or construction workers are burlier than the average person in another profession. Sure, you could say that there are burly men in other professions, or that Pro-Wrestlers are, in fact, even burlier, but that doesn't mean anything.
There are so many factors that lead to this that I doubt I'll even scratch the surface, but I can start with the fact that artists tend not to think of work and money in the same terms as other professions at all. Yes, we'd like money for sure, but that is not the driving force of our work. What we really strive for is response, connection, approval. An artist is paid in applause, and any money is incidental.
And herein lay many problems for us. For one, it's not like people who would give up cash for attention are really well-regarded in society. We are self-centered almost by default which people find off-putting and unattractive after a short time, and for good reason. We have to find community with each other, but even that is difficult, as we are all so competitive with one another for the affections of, well, one another. It's a sick, sick lifestyle, and one which we partake in only because we feel like we must. And we must because we so crave that response, connection, approval. It is not just like a drug; biochemically I'm sure that it is a drug, and one with more spiking highs and devastating lows than crack.
It isn't necessarily clear why we need that attention so badly. My two older brothers and I all fit under the Highly Creative types we're discussing here, and we never wanted for attention or approval from our family, ever. Still, there it is. When I write music, as I've been doing since I was a child, I know the feeling of working seemingly forever trying to express whatever I'm feeling, which will often be something very dark, but to me, because I've spent so long nurturing my own sense of self-reflection, very nuanced as well. Once I get it, though, it sounds absolutely, stunningly joyful to my ears - even if the feeling I'm trying to express is abject self-hatred. I know I'm not alone in this regard.
Then comes the fateful moment - seeing what others will think. Sometimes it will play, people will clap, and your payment is secured. You can hold onto that as you play it again, alone, knowing that you've created something that connects. Most other times you will receive indifference, which is the worst. There's no rubric for artistic creation when you're doing it, and if it doesn't connect, it was all for naught. You start to wonder if you're a hack or a fraud. You start to second guess what were previously moments of epiphany - looking at what you've just written and thinking, "Shit, did I just do another G-C-D progression? That's not creative, that's trite! I'm doing it wrong!" Meanwhile, the people unashamed with G-C-D are on the radio all the time, playing to the adoring fans you so desire. And that's just at an amateur level.
To do any of this professionally, you must brave more rejection than probably any other industry has to offer, all flung carelessly at people who are so sensitive that they couldn't let themselves do anything else. At the first sign of approval from anyone with power in the industry, you will suddenly believe that you've made it, and will do anything to please them, which is how the RIAA is able to get people to gleefully sign contracts which are indistinguishable from indentured servitude. Then, if you truly make it, god help you.
You used to have the places you'd go for peace, where you wouldn't be bothered, where you could think about what's going on and try to bring some insight to it all. Now, outside of your home you are recognized. People want to meet you just long enough to say they've met you but not long enough to learn anything about you, or for you to learn anything about them. Your dream starts to turn on you, and you move to Hollywood, or wherever else is applicable, so that being a celebrity will no longer be noteworthy.
This isn't to even mention that once you're established, it's fair game for others to be as scornful as they want about your output. You're a star now, and there's no sympathizing with you anymore, which is odd, because that's all you ever wanted, really. Maybe you're punk as fuck and find the anger from fans as invigorating as the cheers, but most likely you just feel like a fraud.
And that's the best-case scenario, save for one. Some artists manage to beat back their demons and still create works, but even there, we probably don't care what they have to say once they're content. Think about it. If you're having trouble with your job, or a relationship, or what have you, will you be happy with the friend who responds by telling you how great everything's going for them? What about the friend who responds by bitching about far pettier things? When an artist no longer absolutely needs their art to survive, particularly if they did previously, what they put out will seem crass, commercial, and fake.
And yes, we will self-medicate. We will smoke, and drink, and do any drug that doesn't seem to threaten to make us "not feel" anymore, because we are desperately self-centered, once again. As much as it hurts, we see our pain as part of our identity, and our livelihood, and taking specific paths to change our perception of the world, as sensible as it is, feels like the gravest sin imaginable. We feel pain. We feel joy. All we can do in this life is express those things in a way that might matter to someone. As twisted and wrong as this is, fixing the physiological problem feels like selling out, and weirder still, it just feels selfish.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:20 PM on October 8, 2008 [6 favorites]
There are so many factors that lead to this that I doubt I'll even scratch the surface, but I can start with the fact that artists tend not to think of work and money in the same terms as other professions at all. Yes, we'd like money for sure, but that is not the driving force of our work. What we really strive for is response, connection, approval. An artist is paid in applause, and any money is incidental.
And herein lay many problems for us. For one, it's not like people who would give up cash for attention are really well-regarded in society. We are self-centered almost by default which people find off-putting and unattractive after a short time, and for good reason. We have to find community with each other, but even that is difficult, as we are all so competitive with one another for the affections of, well, one another. It's a sick, sick lifestyle, and one which we partake in only because we feel like we must. And we must because we so crave that response, connection, approval. It is not just like a drug; biochemically I'm sure that it is a drug, and one with more spiking highs and devastating lows than crack.
It isn't necessarily clear why we need that attention so badly. My two older brothers and I all fit under the Highly Creative types we're discussing here, and we never wanted for attention or approval from our family, ever. Still, there it is. When I write music, as I've been doing since I was a child, I know the feeling of working seemingly forever trying to express whatever I'm feeling, which will often be something very dark, but to me, because I've spent so long nurturing my own sense of self-reflection, very nuanced as well. Once I get it, though, it sounds absolutely, stunningly joyful to my ears - even if the feeling I'm trying to express is abject self-hatred. I know I'm not alone in this regard.
Then comes the fateful moment - seeing what others will think. Sometimes it will play, people will clap, and your payment is secured. You can hold onto that as you play it again, alone, knowing that you've created something that connects. Most other times you will receive indifference, which is the worst. There's no rubric for artistic creation when you're doing it, and if it doesn't connect, it was all for naught. You start to wonder if you're a hack or a fraud. You start to second guess what were previously moments of epiphany - looking at what you've just written and thinking, "Shit, did I just do another G-C-D progression? That's not creative, that's trite! I'm doing it wrong!" Meanwhile, the people unashamed with G-C-D are on the radio all the time, playing to the adoring fans you so desire. And that's just at an amateur level.
To do any of this professionally, you must brave more rejection than probably any other industry has to offer, all flung carelessly at people who are so sensitive that they couldn't let themselves do anything else. At the first sign of approval from anyone with power in the industry, you will suddenly believe that you've made it, and will do anything to please them, which is how the RIAA is able to get people to gleefully sign contracts which are indistinguishable from indentured servitude. Then, if you truly make it, god help you.
You used to have the places you'd go for peace, where you wouldn't be bothered, where you could think about what's going on and try to bring some insight to it all. Now, outside of your home you are recognized. People want to meet you just long enough to say they've met you but not long enough to learn anything about you, or for you to learn anything about them. Your dream starts to turn on you, and you move to Hollywood, or wherever else is applicable, so that being a celebrity will no longer be noteworthy.
This isn't to even mention that once you're established, it's fair game for others to be as scornful as they want about your output. You're a star now, and there's no sympathizing with you anymore, which is odd, because that's all you ever wanted, really. Maybe you're punk as fuck and find the anger from fans as invigorating as the cheers, but most likely you just feel like a fraud.
And that's the best-case scenario, save for one. Some artists manage to beat back their demons and still create works, but even there, we probably don't care what they have to say once they're content. Think about it. If you're having trouble with your job, or a relationship, or what have you, will you be happy with the friend who responds by telling you how great everything's going for them? What about the friend who responds by bitching about far pettier things? When an artist no longer absolutely needs their art to survive, particularly if they did previously, what they put out will seem crass, commercial, and fake.
And yes, we will self-medicate. We will smoke, and drink, and do any drug that doesn't seem to threaten to make us "not feel" anymore, because we are desperately self-centered, once again. As much as it hurts, we see our pain as part of our identity, and our livelihood, and taking specific paths to change our perception of the world, as sensible as it is, feels like the gravest sin imaginable. We feel pain. We feel joy. All we can do in this life is express those things in a way that might matter to someone. As twisted and wrong as this is, fixing the physiological problem feels like selling out, and weirder still, it just feels selfish.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:20 PM on October 8, 2008 [6 favorites]
Here's a little something that narks me personally — the better I get at my craft, the closer I come to being able to articulate and realise my vision, the less money I make.
Extrapolate for extra marks.
posted by Wolof at 12:02 AM on October 9, 2008
Extrapolate for extra marks.
posted by Wolof at 12:02 AM on October 9, 2008
Wolof, for extra points: In order to articulate and realize your vision, you will have to PAY MONEY just like everyone else
posted by dirty lies at 6:57 AM on October 9, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by dirty lies at 6:57 AM on October 9, 2008 [1 favorite]
Because more so than the fleeting and deceptive pleasures of other people, and far more so than what most people consider enjoyable pastimes, the only real pleasure, subtle but visceral and flowering from within, the only real stake you can make in life that is yours and yours only, is to create art.
And here's the origin of a lots of artists' depression: the realization that, eventually, all of that creating of art results in a heckuva lot of effort for something that can seem futile. As mentioned above, the creative impulse is a lot of self-medication saying "if I just finish this book, if I can just get this role, if I can just express how I feel, I'll finally be happy...". This is the similar to the sisyphisian effort of those people who are saying "if I can just get this next promotion/raise/etc." only to later feel it wasn't worth it.
Artists weren't the first or the only people to understand the "fleeting and deceptive pleasures of other people." Marcus Aurelius made a lot of the same observations in the 2nd century, and I'm sure others can mention plenty of those who had similar observations or have expressed similar feelings.
I'm not saying I have the answers. I don't. But I don't think we should pretend that artists have any particularly better insight into this question or that they are dealing with different questions that the rest of us are trying to deal with.
posted by deanc at 1:38 PM on October 10, 2008
And here's the origin of a lots of artists' depression: the realization that, eventually, all of that creating of art results in a heckuva lot of effort for something that can seem futile. As mentioned above, the creative impulse is a lot of self-medication saying "if I just finish this book, if I can just get this role, if I can just express how I feel, I'll finally be happy...". This is the similar to the sisyphisian effort of those people who are saying "if I can just get this next promotion/raise/etc." only to later feel it wasn't worth it.
Artists weren't the first or the only people to understand the "fleeting and deceptive pleasures of other people." Marcus Aurelius made a lot of the same observations in the 2nd century, and I'm sure others can mention plenty of those who had similar observations or have expressed similar feelings.
I'm not saying I have the answers. I don't. But I don't think we should pretend that artists have any particularly better insight into this question or that they are dealing with different questions that the rest of us are trying to deal with.
posted by deanc at 1:38 PM on October 10, 2008
I'll tell you, how many other people face a large image of white space and either feel the need to fill it with something and can, or face the image of white space and want to fill it with something and cannot. And then, eventually, when that space is filled, does it meet the expectations of the creator, or not. And even if it does, it is not the end of it, because there is more white space. And if it does not meet the expectations...well, there you have it. You don't stop, you have to still fill it, whether you like it or not. And, one asks, what prompts this need to fill it? A voice, an urge, an insecurity, a vision--all dangerous stuff, but still real. It is a world unto itself. I find the remarks about "what others think about" revealing of the general misunderstanding of the artist. What others think? Simply, no. What does the voice think, what does the urge think, what does the insecurity think, what does the vision think. No one else counts. Even though there may be detours--that was the way it began, and that is the way it will end.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 7:38 PM on October 10, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by wallstreet1929 at 7:38 PM on October 10, 2008 [1 favorite]
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posted by IvoShandor at 5:37 AM on October 8, 2008