A lot of people are crazy, but it's okay.

[lindentreeisle]

Penny Arcade had a comic on Monday addressing the issue of whether psychopharmaceuticals impact creativity. The comic plays it flippantly, because it is a comic, but the accompanying newspost was very thoughtful.

But that’s how this idea is generally presented: madness as a supernatural power source, as opposed to a seemingly inviting bowl of

Comments

[lawless523]

It's possible that art, or whatever other creative endeavor people engage in, is how someone copes with their emotional issues as opposed to the emotional issues being associated with creativity.

[lindentreeisle]

Yes. Which raises a similar, troubling question: if you take away the suffering that provokes great art, are you thereby causing an end to the production of that art?

There's an argument to be made- which Tycho gives evidence of in his post- that one can't experience extraordinary pleasure without experiencing extraordinary pain, so arguably the pleasure experienced by someone who deals with severe emotional issues is consequently even greater than the pleasure experienced by a baseline person. That's quite possible, at least for some people- Tycho seems to experience it that way, although my particular malfunction has never led to mania or the good kind of mood spikes, so that's not my experience.

[lawless523]

I have the feeling that the answer to your question is sometimes "yes."

[lindentreeisle]

Sometimes it probably is, yes. The really important question is whether the tradeoff is ultimately worth it, and many people (like Tycho) say no.