SDNess

A thread related to this one: Why is it that "creators" are more creative while under the influence?

Since I aspire to be a writer, I am constantly thinking about "creating" things. A couple of months ago, I was concerned with how drug use affected creation. Now I'm wondering about depression and its affects.

Ernest Hemingway once said, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

I often visit websites like kirjasto - books & writers and the literature network to read about the backgrounds of various writers. One thing I have discovered after reading these biographies is that many artists (yes, not just writers anymore...) suffer from depression, addiction, or other psychological complications.

Why is this? Is there some scientific explanantion? Are people with this unstable state of mind more able to create/discover things? It appears to me that many artists/intellectuals/creators are like this. Am I wrong?

Ernest Hemingway - Author
In 1960 Hemingway was hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for treatment of depression, and released in 1961. During this time he was given electric shock therapy for two months. On July 2 Hemingway committed suicide with his favorite shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

Sylvia Plath - Poet
Plath died in London on February 11, 1963; she committed suicide.

Anne Sexton - Poet
Committed suicide.

Charlie Parker - Musician
Due to his drug addiction and chance-taking personality, enjoyed playing with fire too much. In 1951, his cabaret license was revoked in New York. In 1954, he twice attempted suicide before spending time in Bellevue. His health, shaken by a very full if brief life of excesses, gradually declined, and when he died in March 1955 at the age of 34, he could have passed for 64.

Edgar Allen Poe - Poet
One the greatest and unhappiest of American poets. Poe suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and he attempted suicide in 1848. In September the following year he disappeared for three days after a drink at a birthday party and on his way to visit his new fiancée in Richmond. He turned up in delirious condition in Baltimore gutter and died on October 7, 1849.

Akira Kurosawa - Director
After an attempted suicide, Kurosawa went on to make several more films: Dersu Uzala, made in the USSR and set in Siberia in the early 20th century, won an Oscar; Kagemusha, the story of a man who is the double of a medieval Japanese lord and takes over his identity; and the aforementioned Ran, which was a phenomenal international success and is considered to be the crowning artistic achievement of Kurosawa's career.

Kurt Cobain - Musician
Depression, committed suicide.

Another question:
This isn't meant to be homophobic: Why are many poets/dramaists homosexual? W. H. Auden, Isherwood, Walt Whitman, Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Proust, etc. Is there a social or scientific reason behind this?

I myself write poetry and am heterosexual, but a lot of my friends consider it an odd thing to do. At a club meeting in school, a friend of mine was leaving early to read some poetry at Starbucks. After he left, some of the people joked that he was going off to get in touch with his "emotional" side.

Well there, two questions. Give me your thoughts.

Leto

For all the creative persons with depression and suicidal tendancies, you'll have the same amount enjoying their life, and much more non creative person with the same problems. However, creative people with such problem may simply use their problem into their works. BTW, as king of the mad artist, you've forgot Vincent Van Gogh.

Same goes with homosexual poets, François Villon, Byron (maybe bi but I'm not sure), Louis Aragon, Charles Beaudelaire and so on were all female addicted and yet great poets.

__________________

hodor

BLAH! I don't and refuse to buy it. I know there are authors and artists with problems but same as authors and artists without problems. Same with other people. Nobody is perfect and everyone has a problem. It's just when you write or do art people analyse you more than if you were to say... a carpenter or grocery clerk.

The Master™

I guess that there is a lot of publicity about those "creators" who go through the wringer and die... It is dramatic and note worthy, for some people... If you are a creator - and are "normal", well adjusted, chemical free and living to a ripe old age - then you are boring and not worth taking note of...

By the same token, being poetic doesn't pre-dispose you to homosexuality, but some people feel the need to emphasize these facts to prove that they aren't "REAL" men...

You see, that to be a real man, you have to enjoy sport, bed any and all elligable women, enjoy blood sports, drink yourself into unconciousness on a regular basis and drive loud "MANLY" vehicles... If you fall outside that, then you are "odd"...

If you enjoy poetry, or are creative, then live your life as you see fit... Don't follow the sheep, do your own thing...

dwndrgn

I don't think there is a corelation between being artistic and being depressed - as others said I think it is a false positive created by the fact that these are famous people and their lives are more talked about so we're more apt to hear about them. In addition, fame can create many more stresses in a life than you'd think, so you'd have to add that to the equation. Same goes for homosexuality - there are more gay men and women out there than you know but it is more often the famous/creative types we hear about, or are more likely to be out of the closet.

I think it would be a much more interesting question to see how many of the famous/creative people who had documented depression or committed suicide were also drug/alcohol users. I'd find it much more likely to have a more linked cause and effect in those cases.

WorldRuler

I think it must have something to do with who they're surrounded with. Apart from being "creators", gifted children and adults have higher suicide and depression rates than "normal" people. Without intellectual equals, ideas go unexplained. I imagine knowing you're brilliant but no one being able to understand would be incredibly depressing.

Take the case of Escher (sp?). He created thousands of tessalations that other people though were pretty but couldn't see the mathematics behind. The inability to show his genius to other people eventually drove Escher insane.

hodor

Escher rocks man.

Neon

I dabble in poetry from time to time ..... but usually my inspiration occurs during the rough/depressing times in life. So in my case, the "depression" actually stimulates creative thought as an outlet to emotional pain. Now granted, I'm normally a pretty happy individual w/out any addictions or otherwise abnormal behavior ... I think

polymorphikos

I'm going with the whole 'depression gives a person something to write about' angle. You know, if someone's writing deep, tortured, emotional stuff, they'll probably do it better if they're deep, tortured and emotional, or at least have a look-in. It's like with drug fiction, it's not always necessarily better, just different.


EDIT: Why is this in the Lounge anyway? The forum bounderies are all blurred these days.

Lacedaemonian

I am gay, depressed and not the least bit creative...