Depression as a failure of creativity?

[Journey]

Certainly. I hope you know that I wasn't trying to mock your faith.

I never felt you were.

 

[Hirsch63]

Sounds strange coming from an NJ... but the process of creating to me is about letting go of your expectations and just immerse yourself in the creativity process. It's true that the final product matters... but in order to create something that's meaningful to you... you have to experience the process... to "fully live it".

I don't know about anybody else... but for me... being depressed leads to the fear of failure. Worrying over how something is going to turn out badly... and that hampers with the creative process.

There may be any number of ways of being creative. For me there are expectations involved; I have an idea that I wish to realize even though I may improvise changes during my process. Think of singing....you may wish to have expectations of your performance...your listeners will wish you did. Inspired, free-form undisciplined creativity isn't necessarily wrong and it is not necessarily good either.

Depression and the making of good art are not mutually exclusive; depression can supply the concept for meaningful work. Types of sources of depression (say severe sudden onset fom injury or significant loss) may vary and have an effect on creativity....but a chronic dyspnea is something lived with and probably inherent and significantly informative in our creative work. I think the trick is to take advantage of the perspective that our depression allows us, to inform our work. I sure wouldn't know how to look at a gallery full of work created by a hopelessly optimistic ball of sunshine...maybe just for curiosity but I would wonder what this artist's experience has to offer me as divorced as it is from the general run of life.

 

[antireconciler]

I rather like starting with one word, then seeing what is says and writing it down. Then I have two words who are having a conversation and all I have to do is eavesdrop.

I like this. Very much. Once you have something to work with, there's a sense in which it will continue along in its own expression, and you need only watch. The mind has a way of providing material for its own pleasing ... but only once the work is about its own self-becomming, rather than a stationary fixed and expected end result. Whatever "end" you had in mind can only be a starting point. For, however far you've ventured ahead of yourself in your thinking about what you want to create, the creation is not the product, but it is in the creating.

Working creatively will put a person in direct contact with their inner most emotions, I think and so it may actually increase feelings of depression at times in very sharp focus.

I find this too, although, creating is in a sense a channel, so despite intense feelings of despair, the ability to use them creatively leaves it with all its potency, but with you somehow beyond them too. I find that very pleasant, even as I might have very intense feelings.

I don't know about anybody else... but for me... being depressed leads to the fear of failure. Worrying over how something is going to turn out badly... and that hampers with the creative process.

Me too. I think there's a sense in which there is no creation which is not some kind of self-enjoyment, whatever feelings go into it, and depression is very much a resistance to this. But it also seems that there is no self-enjoyment which is not creative, and so in this sense, open creativity and depression TRULY ARE exclusive of each other. Despression is fear, where creativity, like exploration of any kind, can only find power in courage.

Depression and the making of good art are not mutually exclusive; depression can supply the concept for meaningful work. Types of sources of depression (say severe sudden onset fom injury or significant loss) may vary and have an effect on creativity....but a chronic dyspnea is something lived with and probably inherent and significantly informative in our creative work. I think the trick is to take advantage of the perspective that our depression allows us, to inform our work. I sure wouldn't know how to look at a gallery full of work created by a hopelessly optimistic ball of sunshine...maybe just for curiosity but I would wonder what this artist's experience has to offer me as divorced as it is from the general run of life.

Yet this is true too. Who could create meaningfully who had no sense of drive to do so? And who could have drive to create except for from the will honed and tempered to clear focus by some courage in the face of suffering? Creativity is courageous, but there is no courage without overcoming, and no overcoming without knowing fear. This isn't just a word game.