"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Nabokov," my professor said, quieting the room with an intense gaze (side-note: GOD was he beautiful--my entire love of literature may just be a displaced crush on this professor), "the most unexpected, the way in which he is most unique among writers of his caliber, is this:
"He was happy."
Let's be honest: I just wanted an excuse to put up a picture of David Tennant
He went on to explain that, far from being a tortured artist trapped in a mental prison, the only window of which looked out over a barren landscape of painful truths, Nabokov was pretty personally fulfilled. He loved his wife and sons. He enjoyed his lepidoptery "hobby" (so much so that he discovered a new species of butterfly based on counting the number of scales on the butterfly's wings). He never seemed to suffer from major--or even noteworthy minor--depression.
He was a world-class writer, and yet he enjoyed his life.
I'm sure over the last few centuries there have been a few artists who can claim the same, maybe even a dozen (though probably no others from Russia--I mean come on), but there sure aren't many.
So exactly how causal do we think the relationship between mental illness and art is? Does it really exist, or have successive generations of writers, artists, actors and mauvais-vivants all just put on a great show of grimness because that's the artistic "look?"
Anecdotally, I know a lot of my creative friends struggle with various mental disorders of varying degrees. Speaking for myself, the closest I probably get to looking like a legitimate "artist" is my slew of what would once have been called "neuroses."
By now, in my extremely-late 20s, I've figured out various coping mechanisms (three-quarters of them are variations on "just suck it up and wait it out"). I'm also lucky--I've got varying degrees of depression, anxiety disorder, and (likely the most prominent) obsessive-compulsive disorder, but none of them have ever become crippling. I may have a mild panic attack a couple times a week, but it doesn't totally shut me down. I've gotten so good at skipping cracks and undesirable patches of discoloration on the sidewalk that most people are shocked to learn that's something I do...in fact something I can't NOT do.
So I tell myself I don't "need" medication, and for now, I'm functional enough to believe myself.
But I know, deep-down, that even if I did, I'd be reluctant to take it. Part of that is hardwired (I also suffer through hangovers sans headache medicine because I find "unnecessary" medications somehow suspect), but a big part of it is tied to the belief (superstition?) that my creativity is somehow locked up in my mental illnesses; that the two form a sort of mental conjoined twin, neither of which can live--or at least thrive--without the other.
Is that crazy? Does it glorify mental illness too much (which I adamantly do NOT want to do)?
Or is there some truth in it?
I'm not much of a creative writer, but I do know that I began to write much more fluidly and effectively as an aspiring academic after I started some medication. Obviously every one is their own special snowflake with their own personal mental challenges, but in my experience, going on anti-anxiety meds helped me use my free time better and prevented intense emotional mood swings from blind-siding my work time and inhibiting my writing process.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jilly!
There's a great essay by Louis Menand from a few years back in the New Yorker where he talks about resistance (like mine) to mental meds as the equivalent of refusing statins for your cholesterol out of a mixed-up belief that statins will block your "flow." On the one hand, he's right, and he's homing in on a legitimate problem among creatives: we tend to ascribe some sort of mythic status to mental disease, acting like it's part of the process, as opposed to an unfortunate side-effect. But I still worry...what if the side-effect of "curing" the side-effect is that you just don't have the drive to make things, anymore? What if it would make me feel OKAY about the idea of filling my free time exclusively with Bravo TV marathons? I'm terrified of that possibility...
ReplyDelete(Also, Hilary, I think you're a seriously creative writer!)
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's any hard rule in art about process type stuff. And I guess I'm putting it in the processing column. I am generally stunted if I'm overwhelmed and depressed. It doesn't lead to cathartic writing. It shuts me down. When that happens I drag through it and put on the blinders and push myself to do all the things I've been avoiding (after many failed attempts). It generally is a great big pain in the ass. Once I knock a good tune out the confidence level rises big time and if I keep up with the writing everything else doesn't seem as much of a problem. It's a personal thing, but generally those blazing short-lived lives and gasps of genius while they can leave some amazing work are that. Short-lived. And that should make us sad that perhaps that person couldn't keep going. This is more the alcoholic/addict personality than the mental illness bit though sometimes they are related. There's nothing to say, of course, that they would have continued to make great contributions, but it's likely at least in the case of alcohol since that addiction defo messes with your brain chemistry. Jen read a book on writers and alcoholism in January and she's still referencing it. How cute!
ReplyDeleteI agree-I def don't write my best when I'm in the throes of something. But I'm liable to occasionally BE in the throes of something, like you, and I wonder if the one maybe doesn't directly cause the other, but is nonetheless inextricably linked to it? Like I wouldn't write in the good times if I didn't have the occasional truly-bad?
ReplyDeleteWhat book on writers and alcoholism? There are so many with that link that it's worth asking...
Yea, I think that some sort deficiency is maybe most times at the root of creativity. Others are truly fucked and beyond saving and pick people off a clock tower. The creative thing is a much better solution! Why are we taking this away from kids in schools, again?
ReplyDeleteit's probably not a hard rule though. Some people just have that kind of imagination. Some people are mostly kind and generous (I still don't believe this is a real 98% of the time thing but there are handful of people like this --It baffles me).
The book is called The Last Trip to Echo Spring. Doesn't matter whether you like the writers profiled or not. I didn't even know about John Cheever till this book. The experiences and how they dealt with alcoholism is the important bit. That and of course how it affected their writing and the types of characters they created. Almost always the alcohols in their novels/plays/stories were the bad guys. The saddest story is about Tennessee Williams I think. The writing is a teeny bit self-indulgent as part of the book is her traveling to different parts of the countries where these writers worked, but I enjoyed it.
It sounds like something I'd be into-thanks for the rec!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean: people like that confuse me. usually I wonder if there's some subconscious plan I'm just not picking up on...coz I'm a terrible, cynical, person
You and me both.
ReplyDeleteLet me know what you think of the book if you get around to reading it. Seriously though. Tennessee. Heartbreaking.
If you have a copy I'd love to borrow it!
ReplyDeleteSadly I borrowed it from the store. We get to borrow hardcovers if we leave the jacket. It's gotta be something the library has though.
ReplyDeleteNice. Will find.
ReplyDeleteI dated a guy who had an oh-so-very-artist's temperament. He had a ton of raw talent, but that very temperament prevented him from cultivating it. He was never willing to work hard and improve; he just wanted to Jack Kerouac all over the place, and, unfortunately, even Jack Kerouac probably shouldn't have Jack Kerouac'd all over the place.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was young, I usually wrote when (I thought) my life sucked. Now, if my life sucks too much, I can't go near a keyboard. BUT, if I'm soooo very happy and I feel sooo fulfilled with other aspects of my life, I lose all motivation to write (don't worry; doesn't happen often). So I guess I require a head space somewhere in between domestic homebody and tortured vagrant.
There's an awesome (and awful, since it's from Megan's mom to Megan) line on Mad Man, something along the lines of "it is too bad, she has the artist's temperament, but she is not an artist." Sounds like that's the guy you dated.
ReplyDeleteAgreed: depths of depression and heights of joy are both bad places for me to try to write. Partially because they both prompt identical-feeling panic attacks. Ha(?)