Shots of Awe: Creativity and Depression

This episode opens with another quote from Ernest Becker:

The creativity of people on the schizophrenic end of the human continuum is a creativity that springs from the inability to accept the standardized cultural denials of the real nature of experience. And the price of this kind of "extra human" creativity is to live on the brink of madness, as men have long known."

Jason Silva, paraphrasing Kierkegaard, draws contrasts between the schizophrenic and the depressive. The former is overwhelmed by too much possiblity, too much ecstasy. He is driven mad because he cannot pursue all of the avenues of creativity he is drawn to. Conversely, the depressive is subject to a failure of the imagination. He is stuck with too much entropy, too much gravity. He is too grounded, whereas the schizophrenic is not grounded enough.

I'll go ahead and state at the outset that I find it a bit off-putting when mental illness is romanticized. I know depressives (I sometimes wrestle with it myself) and both know and have known schizophrenics. Creative urges or no, I would not wish either state on anyone.

The person mired in a major depressive episode truly cannot see beyond himself or his current state, and too often sees substance abuse or death (self-inflicted violence) as the only door of escape. The suicides of Dante's Inferno exist as thorny bushes in the seventh circle of Dante's Hell, alongside the profligates, only able to speak through their blood when a twig is torn from a branch. If the depressive person has any creative urge, he may find expression to be a relief valve, in some cases producing works of artistic value. The list of artists and other well-known people with major depressive disorders is certainly a long one. Given the choice, most would probably choose to be free of the chemical imbalances responsible for the condition, but others might say that there is value in asking questions such as "What's the point in / meaning of life?" especially when one struggles towards an answer. The struggle for an answer to that question means that hope exists and life still has value.

The schizophrenics I've known have been creative, but in very unfocused ways. One was obsessed with an MTV VJ and Nazis, another is convinced that a radio personality hates him and communicates this hate telepathically. He is absolutely convinced that the voices he hears are real, but is also an atheist, arguing that God is imaginary. (Regardless of your own beliefs about God's existence, the inconsistency is plain.) The

man's brother, also schizophrenic, believes that all medicine is absolutely beneficial, and will consume any and all medications found unsecured in the house. Both people are intelligent and creative, but unable to support themselves and will need some level of outside care in the future. Powerful medications have to be continually adjusted, and a restless quasi-sleep that is difficult to watch awaits the schizophrenic at night. Regular work seems nearly impossible to attain, lucid periods last only briefly, and a life spent on disability in a group home is often the best outcome to be hoped for. Like depression, there seems to be a genetic predisposition toward development of schizophrenia.

Silva asks, "How do we leverage these contrasts of visions and live with a little bit of grace?"

One thing I would very much like to see is more readily available and effective assistance for persons with mental illness and their caregivers, particularly in cases where there is demonstrated or high potential for violence. In most mass shootings, there was a pattern of problematic behavior and underlying psych-emotional issues that were either unsatisfactorily addressed or wholly unrecognized. One-third of America's homeless population has untreated psychiatric disorders. This is an expensive and complicated problem to solve, and unfortunately, the political will only seems to exist to treat symptoms of problems, not to identify and solve causes. In the meantime, pharmacology saves. More or less.

When depressives aren't so debilitated by the illness that they can't get out of bed or think of a reason to live, and when schizophrenics are able to be free of voices and the mixed-bag of medicine's side-effects, that might be a better time to talk about leveraging visions. The grace comes first, by helping the sufferer.