Depression is NOT a requisite of Creativity

  
     Anyone who is eccentric is insane, or at least that's the message I get from the world around me. I am led to believe that anyone who would take their pet lobster out for walks, dress in a wardrobe made entirely out of raw meat or pick cigarette butts up off the ground for the precious tobacco left inside was probably someone I should keep my distance from,
as there was something not quite right about them. On the contrary, these are exactly the type of people I would want to associate myself with. I'm talking about Gérard de Nerval, one of France's most romantic 19^th century poets, who was quite fond of his pet lobster, Thibault. Contemporary pop superstar Lady Gaga, who is well known for her unusual fashion sense, and you wouldn't want to shun one of the world's greatest minds, Albert Einstein, for not only picking up trash, but also getting a free smoke in the process. I'm calling for a new understanding of the term eccentric, which in recent times has come to be synonymous with the label “mentally ill.” Being eccentric is not an illness, eccentricity is simply unusual and unique behavior manifesting as a result of creative originality and experimentation. Our present-day creative minds are as healthy and as visionary as they ever were, and their eccentricities showcase their unique ideas and values.

It is widely understood that the creative mind operates differently than those without that creative spark. Perhaps less well-known is that there is actually scientific proof to support this common belief. What new studies have shown is that the brains of the creatively inclined tend to be more active than the brains of the less creative in specific regions associated with attention and focus during periods of complex problem-solving. While being a key difference in the inner workings of certain people, this in no way implies a defect or disorder as some have labeled it, but rather, it is simply proof that humans are not all wired the same.

In the CNN article “The dark side of creativity,” journalist William Lee Adams informs us of a study involving brain MRIs of subjects diagnosed with a condition called schizotypy, a condition loosely related to schizophrenia. Neuroscientist Andreas Fink published a study in which he and his colleagues compared the brains of people living with schizotypy to those of undiagnosed creative people. While they were asked to invent new and unique ways of using common objects, their brains were scanned and the resulting object usages were assessed on their level of originality. The results of this experiment clearly showed similarities in the way the schizotypy diagnosed and creative brains functioned, where they were active in regions that are “normally” inactive during complex tasks. The conclusion could be drawn that creative minds are broken, but more likely, we are creating illnesses to explain why some brains function differently. Adams goes on to state that “psychologists have established a link between mental illness and creativity, but they are still piecing together the mechanisms that underlie [the link].” Of course there is a link between creativity and the artist’s emotional or mental state. Creativity is in itself a very emotionally rooted entity, and the emotional connection that is established between the artist's creation and the observer is the very reason creativity is embraced in the first place. Obviously any creative person who has sacrificed their figurative or literal blood, sweat and tears in the process of creating and perfecting his or her work in order to put it on display for the world to see is going to have an emotional attachment to that work, and they are going to be affected by any judgment and criticism their work receives.

Despite the lack of any evidence tying the two causes together, mainstream society today still labels many creative and eccentric individuals as broken. To claim that there is a mental disorder where there is only mental difference is an incredibly damaging accusation to make, as we are now telling our creative minds that there is something wrong with them. Imagine an individual, we’ll call Pablo, who fits in to the cliché stereotypical label of a tortured artist. Pablo loves to paint, and spends days, weeks, or even months perfecting a beautiful landscape, and only after the countless hours spent getting it exactly the way he wants it, he puts it on display for public viewing, only to be told that the final product is boring, unoriginal, or simply not worth the time and effort spent to create it. It is easy to see how such a criticism could cause Pablo to feel depressed or unworthy. You could say that accepting criticism, both good and bad, is just a part of life and if he is unable to do that in a positive way, he must be depressed or unstable. But let us as a society accept some of the blame ourselves, recognize that in any professional discipline it can take years of practice and many failed attempts before we are able to achieve success. I’m not saying we have to pretend to love every artistic work that crosses our path so as not to hurt the feelings of the various Pablos in the world, I’m saying that we should take the time to form more constructive criticisms that will leave our artists with a better understanding of where they have room for improvement. Acknowledging this, it is irrational to expect everyone to respond to criticism in the same manner, and placing such unrealistic expectations on those who are hard-wired to be different from others creates tremendous amounts of stress, and seeking an outlet to release this stress, be it through more art, drug use or other such questionable or acceptable behaviors, seems only natural.

Unfortunately, the majority of the focus of these creative outlets is placed on the negative side, things like drug and alcohol abuse, or other self-destructive forms of stress relief, while the positive side gets put on the back burner. We normally don't hear them because a lot of these outlets seem fairly normal and include working out, keeping a journal, or something as simple as hiking through the wilderness or going for a drive. These aren't necessarily unique creative outlets but they do act as a form of stress relief for a lot of creative people. I recently interviewed rock 'n roll drummer Chachi Riot about ways he likes to get things off his mind or center himself. “My preferred forms range from heavy physical activity, such as CrossFit, drumming and running, to listening to music and daydreaming positive thoughts.” Such behavior is not generally viewed as eccentric, but that is more of a difference in perception and understanding than anything else. Basically, methods to keep the pot from boiling over involve some form of physical activity devoid of any deep thought process, leaving the mind free to wander while the body is occupied by some form of monotonous labor, therefore separating the stresses in to beneficial forms. In other words, they channel their stress or aggression out of their bodies through some physical means, while the mind focuses on understanding and learning from the negative situation.

Adams also references a Swedish study of nearly 1.2 million psychiatric patients in the midst of his essay. The study “found that people working in creative fields, including dancers, photographers and authors, were 8% more likely to live with bipolar disorder. Writers were 121% more likely to suffer from that condition, and nearly 50% more likely to commit suicide than the general population.” Although this study offers irrefutable proof of a correlation between creativity and these “disorders,” it cannot be concluded that the gift of creativity has the same underlying cause as these emotional symptoms. In the Marvel Comics feature film “Spider-Man 3,” Spider-Man is subdued by an alien symbiotic life-form and is transformed into an evil alter-ego black-suited Spider-Man who goes around causing problems for Peter Parker and the true Spider-Man with his darker and more malicious intent. Now imagine that Spider-Man is representative of the creative mind, and the evil alien entity represents all the negative pressures, stresses and influences in society. Understandably, the pure creative mind can be overcome and corrupted by these alien influences causing the perception of mental illness where there is really mental anguish. In the article “Wilder at Heart,” Jordan Elgrably argues from the perspective that the mind of the eccentric is in fact the healthy one, and that the pressure to adhere to the restrictions of what is deemed to be socially acceptable behavior is the true disease, and it is the modern day therapists and psychiatrists who are merely inventing behavioral disorders in order to expand the prescription drug market. Fortunately in real life, just as in “Spider-Man 3,” there is the possibility to overcome the negative influences in life through resourcefulness and the power of will.

They say that eccentrics are crazy, have some sort of mental disability or are socially broken in one way or another. This point of view and refuses to acknowledge the differences naturally present individuals because it is simply more convenient for everyone to be the same, and discourages individuality and creativity, and these restrictions can lead to unnecessary stress, depression, substance abuse and in extreme cases even death. The common train of thought is that if a person is normal, then that person is also mentally healthy, and conversely, if a person is not normal then they must not be mentally healthy. The basic assumption here is that being “normal” is in fact normal, and being anything but “normal” is abnormal. On the surface, this seems like a perfectly sound and logical argument, but if you think about it more deeply, you will no doubt realize that it fails to recognize one very important fact: that it is indeed possible to be well balanced and mentally stable while at the same time being of creative and eccentric mind. We need to recognize the unique desires and truly visionary ideas that our contemporary eccentrics express, and embrace their creativity before we all succumb to normalcy.

Works Cited

Adams, William Lee. “The dark side of creativity: Depression + anxiety x madness = genius?”

CNN.com, 22 Jan. 2014

Elgrably, Jordan. “Wilder at Heart”

San Jose Metro, 15 Feb. 1996

Riot, Chachi. Personal Interview. 5 Feb. 2014.

Spider-Man 3. Dir. Sam Raimi

2007. Columbia Pictures, 2007. DVD.