Happiness and art, depression and genius
Created | Updated Oct 30, 2007
right off the cuff
let me say that when I was in Jr. High School during the ladder part of the 70s, I was trying to read everything I could get my hands on that I could bear to read.
I couldn't trust adults or other kids to suggest what I might read. Most of them were aliterate idiots.
So I would read about depressed, suicidal and insane artists, scientists, writers and musicians. It seemed a strong possibility to me that their mental conditions were partially caused by having to constantly defend their work and their world view to idiots. Normal, foolish and stupid people who have nothing better to do than ask, "Why are you doing that?" Of course, these are the idiots who weren't paying the artists, scientists, writers or musicians. The truly worst and most likely to turn you into a quivering wreck are the idiots with money who are willing to pay for what they think they might understand someday if it's explained to them in very small words with very big diagrams over a snifter of three hundred year old French soda pop...