Weblog De Fuego: 8/1/09

True Creative Genius

"Though this psychopathology is not for one to

wish, one interesting association with bipolar

disorder is the creativity of those afflicted.

This is not the normal creativity experienced

by the above-average people (on the scale of

creativity). This creativity is the creative genius,

which is so rare, yet an inordinate percentage of

the well-known creative people were/are afflicted

with manic depression. Among the lengthy list are:

(writers) F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway,

Sylvia Plath; (poets) William Blake, Sara Teasdale,

Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson; (composers)

Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky. Psychiatrists, realizing

a connection greater than coincidence, have performed

studies all over the world in an attempt to establish a

link between bipolar disorder and creativity."

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"A just and wise society would care for its artists. A just and wise society would recognize that on the margins of its norm live its geniuses, and though they are strange and sometimes difficult, they must be cared for, for they are the treasures of our time, and they produce the treasures of our time."

Cary Tennis