Crisis of Creativity
Writing on the wall for poets?
Since I’m a writer myself (not just of newsletters and e-letters like this, but fiction and non-fiction books as well), I’m not sure exactly how to take this next bit of news, but I’m fascinated by it nonetheless, so naturally I’m going to spill it to you. I’ll explain why it’s important a little later. Here it is:
Poets die younger than writers of novels, plays, or non-fiction books.
Studying centuries worth of data from the U.S., Turkey, China, and Eastern Europe, a California State University researcher concluded that poets (followed closely by playwrights) lived lives that were on average nearly 10% shorter than the longest-lived authors studied, the non-fiction scribes. He did not study the causes of death. He did, however, document a correlation between poetry writing and mental illness.
This got me thinking that the reason behind the shorter average life span of poets must surely be a high prevalence of suicides. And indeed, an informal Internet search revealed a stunning number of poets (playwrights, too) who’ve taken their own lives, a trend stretching back as far as poetry itself – to Greek and Roman times, even.
Think about it – a lot of household name writers of poetry, plays, and somber fiction have offed themselves. To name a few: Sylvia Plath, Vachel Lindsay, John Berryman, Anne Sexton, Ernest Hemingway (a poet, too), Virgina Woolf (more fiction writer than poet), Sergei Esinen, Sara Teasdale, and many others. As well, seemingly countless rock-and-roll musicians who’ve been dubbed “poets” by popular culture (an arguable concept, I know, but it serves the point at hand) have self-determined their fates.
What the research doesn’t study is this: How much LONGER did these people live because they were able to exorcise their demons on the page than they would have if they’d found no such outlet? I’ve long been a believer in the healing power of expression (read my Daily Dose from 10/24/2003 for more on this), and I wish there were some way to study or calculate how many unbalanced, suicidal, or mentally ill people have avoided leaping from a bridge or slitting their wrists because they WERE dealing with their feelings in poems or plays.
What’s my point in all this, other than to fascinate? Keep reading
An effect, not a cause
The brutal reality is that in any given population, a certain percentage of people will be mentally ill or suicidal (more so among groups in which antidepressant drugs proliferate).
And the notion that personal creativity is linked to the occurrence of madness or suicide is nothing new. There is much circumstantial evidence through the millennia to support such a correlation – hence the expression “You have to suffer to write.”
But in my opinion – a point of view, keep in mind, that’s unsullied by the brainwashing of popular psychology – human beings have a remarkable instinctual talent for seeking what they need to survive, whether it’s food, drink, love, shelter, or a blank sheet of paper (or canvas) to create on. Those with the urge to be creative are doing so out of some need to emote and express to cope with whatever’s going on in their heads
For anyone in the mainstream to assume it’s the creativity that CAUSES the craziness is to not see the forest for the trees. Creativity is an EFFECT of one’s internal struggles. Does this mean that anyone who’s a prolific writer of angst-ridden poetry or fiction is about to go “postal” or commit suicide? Of course not. But it could mean that he or she may be trying to deal with some family or personal issues in the only manner available.
My recommendation? Perhaps all good parents and grandparents should take an interest in the writings of their children and grandchildren. For one thing, kids need constant encouragement and validation of their talent and uniqueness. Reading some of the things they’ve written gives adults a way to render both praise and constructive criticism that can help boost a child’s self-esteem (I know, I’m sounding like a psychologist-but it’s so true!). More importantly, though, reading what kids write can give concerned adults a handle on what their youngsters are going through, and might clue them in on ways in which they can help
And as long as those ways involve love, contact, and shared fun times together instead of a prescription for Prozac, nothing but good can come of it.
Always writing – for my own sanity and yours,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
