Catalysts for creativity

Today's moral: we need emo. If emo didn't exist, Thomas Jefferson would never have created Pon and Zi.

Bored and uninspired as usual. At the moment all I can think of is getting a job, and I probably won't be able to write properly until I've got one. Unfortunately today is Sunday, and nobody's going to ring and offer me a job today, so I have to wait until tomorrow to hassle them all on the phone, begging for an interview.

A blog while I'm waiting: thought I'd do that one about creative stimuli, while the conversation is still relatively fresh in my mind. 'Twas a Facebook conversation 'twixt J and me, which started out as a talk about depression and whether or not you should take medication for it. I'm all for taking as many happy pills as you can squeeze out of the doctor, but then I've been living in France for over six years now. For those of you who don't know this, when you go to the doctor in France with the flu, you're sent to the chemist's immediately and come out with at least four different sorts of medication - usually one syrup, one nose spray and two sets of pills, including painkillers, which they give for nearly everything. I find it interesting that the French live longer than the English, despite the fact that they drink more wine and eat more cheese.

Anyway, J is against this idea. Part of the reason is, of course, that gobbling up so many powerful chemicals cannot be good for your immune system in the long run. With anti-depressants in particular, there's always the risk of becoming addicted to them. I do agree with this, but I'm pretty sure the doctors know the risks and try their best to avoid getting their patients hooked on drugs. However, I may be far too optimistic about the moral standards of my doctor.

The other reason he stated was specific to him, as a musician. J writes the sort of sad, depressing songs that are extremely popular nowadays, and it's true that if he suddenly became really upbeat and happy it probably wouldn't suit his musical image. So even if he had severe depression, J probably wouldn't take anti-depressants, unless the depression itself was preventing him from being creative.

I've heard this before, from many sources. I've read about authors and musicians, poets and artists who actually cultivated a state of melancholy in order to unleash their creativity. And after much reflection, I completely understand. Though at first I asked J if it was actually necessary to be sad in order to write sad songs, and if there wasn't a way to get around the problem, when I thought about it properly I realized that there probably wasn't.

Take writing, for instance. Over the past few years I've realized that the rule "write what you know" is applicable on so many levels - not just in terms of places you know, countries and lifestyles, but also in terms of events, things that happen to you in life, and the emotions that accompany them. I'm no good at writing about loss and grief, because I've so far been lucky enough not to have lost anyone I loved. I couldn't write about motherhood yet, either. I can, however, write about moving country, learning a new language, the culture shock - all the little things you didn't expect to be important but are. The "write what you know" rule can therefore be applied not only in writing, but in all other forms of creativity, too.

Consequently, you can tell a lot about someone's life and personality by observing the forms their creativity takes - if they have a creative outlet, that is. I, for instance, like to write two sorts of stories: comedies about every day life, or parodies of existing stories; and modern fantasy. The fantasy reflects the more dominant, dreamy side of my personality, the part of me that is always thinking, and the fact that I usually attach my fantasy stories to this reality indicates that I'd like to be able to reconcile the two in real life. The comedies, meanwhile, reveal my cynical side, and my ability to laugh at myself, a skill I'm cultivating. However, despite my cynicism/escapism, the fact that I'm very attached to happy endings indicates that I'm optimistic in general.

With that in mind, I wonder what emotional state Van Gogh was in when he painted Starry Night?