Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Redfield Jamison

Sometimes we want to understand why we are the way we are, the way we behave, the way we act, and perhaps even the way we create and materialize our art. Sometimes, these "ways" are uncommon, unconventional, idiosyncratic or just different, and the reason for that is most of the time uncertain to us. In this book Kay explores—perhaps "explains" is a better adjective—some patterns that Artists share when it comes to creative and artistic creation. She dwells into the correlations between artistic and creative creation and Manic-Depressive illness, and how there seems to be inevitable correlations between the two attributes in prominent historic artists.

Although I do not consider myself in possession of Manic-Depressive illness. I must admit as an Artist that I do share some similarities with the characters discussed herein. However, as Kay puts it, "It is important to emphasize that many writers and artists have no family history of these illnesses, nor do they themselves suffer from depression or manic-depressive illness. This point is critical. The basic argument of this book is not that all writers and artists are depressed, suicidal, or manic". That being said, it is interesting how there is a correlation between mental illness, and obsessive artistic creation.

The occurrence of the cyclothymic constitution in artists and writers, besides those whose swings of mood never intermit, there are others with more or less prolonged intervals of normality. In the hypomanic state the patient feels well, but the existence of such states accentuates his feeling of insufficiency and even illness in the depressive phases. In typical cases such alternative cycles will last a lifetime. In cyclothymic artists, musicians, and other creative workers the rhythm of the cycles can be read from the dates of the beginning and cessation of productive work. Some cyclothymics have a seasonal rhythm and have learned to adapt their lives and occupations so well to it that they do not need medical attention.

The neurotical and blaming thoughts pollutes one's mind whenever constant practice of an expertise, or constant development of progress towards the completion of a project is not vehemently pursued; is like such vehement impetus is erratic and too strong to put a reign upon, the only thing that controls it positively is constant creation. Otherwise it deviates towards destructive, unproductive, mundane or dull activities, hence wasting the ephemeral time we have, which creates passionate distress, compelling oneself to create again. Oh dear death, you are my salvation towards perdition.

Depression affects not only mood but the nature and content of thought as well. Thinking processes almost always slow down, and decisiveness is replaced by indecision and rumination. The ability to concentrate is usually greatly impaired and willful action and thought become difficult if not impossible.

I will not talk about depression. What I will talk about is the medicine against depression—and perhaps existentialism and nihilism—is practice. Once one immerses in the flow of practice, it resembles an excursion into the open ocean, where you leave land miles away and focus on the functionality of your boat and your own safety, and preeminently survival. You know you are going back to land, but right now your survival is what matters the most. In this analogy, land is depression (or any other illness), and the boat, or your survival is the action of practice and the main focus.

Socrates in his speech on divine madness in Phaedrus said: If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the mandness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection of the inspired madman. Madness, as used by Plato and Socrates, encompassed a wide range of states of thought and emotion, not just psychosis, but the emphasis clearly was upon a profoundly altered state of consciousness and feeling.

Why is this the case? Perhaps due to the subjective and utterly idiosyncrasy connections one makes in such states. Such altered of consiousness and feeling lead to unprecedented train of thought, to psychological and emotional places never seen or experienced before, and rather than being a product of manic-depressive disorders or any other type of psychosis or mental illness, it's perhaps also due to the subjective experiences one has uniquely lived throguh one's lifespan, and the idiosyncratic and subjective perspective and interpretation such phenomena. This concoction produces unique, inevitable cretive ways of seeing and experimenting things, when is were Art serves as an agent to express these things for the public, thereby expressing an unique point of view, innovative, eccentric, different, unprecedented, artistic, and interesting. For example, a former soldier would describle betray differently (a former soldier who has been in war, experimenting the horrors of humanity first hand) than a melancholic orphan college would. Both would be mundane in nature, awful, especially if both suffer from manic-depressive disorders, but the perspective, description, and point of view will be different due to the experiences and life events of one another which both are artistically human, creatively, interesting to mad.

It does not necessarily follow that the individuals who appear in these records were great because they had mental disease, although that proposition might be maintained with considerable cogency and relevance. The manic drive in its controlled form and phase is of value only if joined to ability. A feebleminded person of hypomanic temperament would simply be one who carried on more activity at a feebleminded level, and this is true also of mediocrity, so the bulk of manic-depressive temperaments are of no special value to the world, and certainly not of distinguished value. If, however, the hypomanic temperament is joined to high ability, an independent characteristic, then the combination may well be more effective than the union of high ability with normal temperament and drive be.

Practice alone does not necessarily produce something, or at least not something worth of attention, not something unprecedented or extraordinary, these adjectives are subjective of course, what one finds incredible does not necessarily makes it incredible. And although art is anything expressed and created by a human, art has to be appreciated, by a third party. It has to be acclaimed artistically by a third party, otherwise it merely stays as a personal or worthless project. You have to throw your work out to the public and let it be judged, let it be enjoyed. Art and one of its purposes is to aid humanity, reference humanity, or improve us humans in some way. However, and the crux is here; Art, creation and materialization is not merely derived from practice, nor from mental illness, it has to be supported by the rules or prepositions of an expertise or or discipline, it has to "make sense", it has to be developed using some rules, some procedures, some ability; why? Because—damn... what a prejudice I've extracted from myself. In a few words, perhaps art does not need to be composed following a set of rules from an expertise, but I believe that art is more impactful if it is. And this is a good example on why Art and Creation are the best medicine for mental illness: they teach you about an expertise, you learn, and preeminently, you channel that mental illness towards creating something unprecedented via ability (rules of an expertise), which mixed with your subjectivity, you create an idiosyncratic piece.

While granting that the poet madness may be "uniquely neurotic," Trilling also emphasizes the essential point (to which we return later) that "the one part of [the poet or artist] that is healthy, by any conceivable definition of health, is that which gives him the power to conceive, to plan, to work, and to bring his work to a conclusion". In short, he stresses the indisputable roles of discipline, rationality, and sustained effort in the execution of lasting works of art and literature.

Just another regurgitation to what was just mentioned.

Virtually all the creative writers and artists (89 percent) said they had experienced intesne, highly productive, and creative episodes. This included all the poets, novelists, and artists, and all but one of the playwrights. Only one of the five biographers, however, reported experiencing such episodes. The most frequent duration of these episodes was two weeks, with half of them lasting between one and four weeks. These "intensely creative" episodes were characterized by pronounced increases in ethusiasm, energy, self-confidence, speed of mental association, fluency of thoughts and elevated mood, and a strong sense of well-being (see figure 3-2).

I am not sure what to write here, but what I am sure of is that this might be useful, it describes the state of art creation, of active and constant materialization. How one feels when one observes one's creation being materialized into the world, becoming tangible in the process.

A powerfully imaginative mind seizes and combines at the same instant, not only two, but all the important ideas of its poem or picture; and while it works with any one of them, it is at the same instant working with and modifying all in their relations to it, never losing sight of their earings on each other; as the motion of a snake's body goes through all parts at once, and its volition acts at the same instant in coils that go contrary ways.

We as creatives tend to connect two points that seemingly do not have a correlation, but we connect them to produce something regardless. How? By being familiar about the expertise that surrounds each of the points. This means that knowing more, i.e. being familiar with more expertise expands your ability to connect points that seemingly are not related and incapable to serve for something. Connecting these types of points inevitably leads to innovation as you create new connections between two or more expertises, and such connections create something unprecedented and tangible. This is why polymathy is also a component—perhaps a strong crucial one—of creativity and also of resilience and versatility; knowing about a diverse range of expertise allows you to overcome adversity easier.

The madness of art, artist's search for some exit from the labyrinth of the imprisoned and despairing self—the verbal structure, the philter, the anodyne, that will somehow provide escape and surcease. For many artists, writing or painting or composing has provided an escape from their turmoils and melancholy. Creative work can act not only as a means of escape from pain, but also as a way through abstraction and the rigors of disciplined thought, and creating a distance from the source of dispair.

Art does indeed takes your full attention, thereby distracts you from the existensial distress that existence and societal imposed responsabilities spell upon you and your psyche. Not only do you channel such distress, but you also leave a reflection of yourself at that particular point of your life (i.e. at that age, at that emotional, financial, academic, professional, environmental, and subjective point of your life) byu materializing something, creating something tangible to be observed, heared, touched, tasted, or read. That's the power and benefits—or at least some of them—of art ladies and gentlemen.

In October 1805 Byron arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge, where, if he “ever attended a lecture,” wrote one biographer, “he found it too dull to mention.” He did, however, read a great deal, write poetry, make friends, and lead an intermittently dissolute life. “I have been extravagant,” he wrote Augusta in December of his first year, an understated confession if ever there was one. His personal generosity, as well as his other intemperate financial ways, led him inevitably to money lenders and an ever-increasing indebtedness. Life never remained entirely bleak for Byron, however. In fall 1807, having been told that regulations would not allow him to keep his dog at Cambridge, he acquired a tame bear—there being no rule forbidding bears—and housed it in the turret of his college rooms. His pleasure in the bear, which he walked through the streets of Cambridge, was obvious: “I have got a new friend, the finest in the world, a tame bear, when I brought him here, they asked me what I meant to do with him, and my reply was ‘he should sit for a Fellowship….’ This answer delighted not.” Byron and the bear, when later reunited at Newstead Abbey, would occasionally swim together.

The reason why I am annotating this passage is because I want to emphasize the fact that artist and authentic humans (regardless of their mental illnesses) tend to be firm, assured, and confident about their actions and their thoughts, their demeanor and their approaches. Why? Because they know what they are capable of, they know their creativity and intellect will keep increasing, being refined, and expanded through their ephemeral lifespan—another thing that they know which makes them versatile, flexible, free of being themselves.

Byron himself wrote: “Yet, see, he mastereth himself, and makes/His torture tributary to his will.”
The apostle of affliction, he who threw
Enchantment over passion, and from woe
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew
The breath which made him wretched; yet he knew
How to make madness beautiful, and cast
O'er erring deeds and thoughts, a heavenly hue
Of words.

He/She who channels his/her impetus into an artistic or/and functional creation will inevitably create something unprecedented, something idiosyncratic, something emotional and passionate, something idiosyncratically human. Furthermore, such creation will, in a way, “use” the impetus for something better, something functional and productive, rather than wasting it into hedonism or trouble. Besides, such creations remark and inevitably portray a reflection of yourself, an instance of who you are, at that particular moment, with those particular circumstances that surround you. Creation and art are the medicine to not only aimlessness and meaningless view, but also the agent of change.

Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.

What a reassuring phrase. Whether this is biased or not, does not matter, what matters is that she is right. In order to change something, to create something unprecedented, to “leave your mark” in this crazy, dynamic, frantic, and volatile world and society, you need to act accordingly to those adjectives. This leads you to unorthodox and unconventional methods and approaches, to different and unusual steps, and to inevitably creative and idiosyncratic ideas and approaches. Some of these ideas work, others don’t, but what they do is to create, yield, or express something differently, something new, and that ladies and gentlemen, eventually hits the hidden bullseye—Schopenhauer reference of the analogy for genius—and creates an extreme breakthrough in the discipline in question, eventually one of those ideas work. Keep trying, constantly, religiously, never stop trying new things. Find an expertise of your liking, and not only try to make a living out of it (in order to fully devote to it calmly without financial hardship), but also create constantly with it, this will refine your skills and your comprehension of the skill. What’s better, if you mingle the skill with other expertise, you become more versatile, increasing the chances of survival in the mundaneness of life and society.