Genetics?
On the Yale panel, psychology professor Carson postulates a strong biological correlation between art and mental disorder. She defines latent inhibition as "a cognitive mechanism that allows people to filter out irrelevant stimulants" implying that ones operating on less latent inhibition allows for higher levels of psychotic inclinations. Creative people, then, who do take advantage of reduced LI
As to the effect of this practice, I must admit to a degree of insanity. It is easy to be overwhelmed and even the highest intelligence cannot act as completely perfect defense against losing itself. Whitman himself advised an occasional "barbaric yalp" and Aristotle's "catharsis" hardly meant shedding a few sympathetic teardrops. Sometimes seemingly psychopathological behavior is in actuality freeing. The tension many artists experience (Van Gogh, Caravaggio, El Greco, Munch to name a few) betrays an inability to reconcile with internalized suffering that, whether individual or vicarious, demands compassion.
As for being a female writer (inheriting the legacy of Plath and Woolf), women tend to be emotional creatures in general and more in touch with the nature of aesthetics. Neither is it difficult to imagine the duality of pressure upon creative workers to maintain originality that caters to the consumers of that very originality. Writers, artists demand "true voice" yet even that world involves rules in which what is genuinely polished may at times fail to conform to expectations. Such tragedy, or rather irrational fear of tragedy, beset the artist for when inspiration has drained itself, the first to detect such emptiness can be no other than the artist himself. Dr. Cotton has always told me, in midst of battling melancholy and insomnia, that "you must not let the dark overwhelm you completely; learn to bridle the darkness, to surf it." The strength to accomplish such an ordeal perhaps lies not in intellectual energies alone. Where there is madness, the ground is most fertile for grace's infusion.
On the Yale panel, psychology professor Carson postulates a strong biological correlation between art and mental disorder. She defines latent inhibition as "a cognitive mechanism that allows people to filter out irrelevant stimulants" implying that ones operating on less latent inhibition allows for higher levels of psychotic inclinations. Creative people, then, who do take advantage of reduced LI
"access a large amount of sensory and internally-generated stimuli, but their high IQ would allow the person to process this additional information without being overwhelmed [...or] their relatively high intelligence keeps them from exhibiting psychopathologic behavior."I want to unpack the statement above a bit in two parts, via experience and autobiographical accounts of recognized artists. Regarding creativity's high tendency toward reduced latent inhibition, there's not much debate. Poets, prophets, painters are visionaries--they look, with eyes wide open and sensitivity ultra-sharp in surveying the surrounding world. As a writer, I personally experience sensory overload on a nearly moment-to-moment basis: the lake, fuchsia blooms, arched eyebrow, rice cake, curvature of font... Artists, in the very act of seeing, penetrate physical reality deep into its metaphysical undergirding. And such a lifestyle is certainly aware of unconsciousness and consciousness's integral relation.
As to the effect of this practice, I must admit to a degree of insanity. It is easy to be overwhelmed and even the highest intelligence cannot act as completely perfect defense against losing itself. Whitman himself advised an occasional "barbaric yalp" and Aristotle's "catharsis" hardly meant shedding a few sympathetic teardrops. Sometimes seemingly psychopathological behavior is in actuality freeing. The tension many artists experience (Van Gogh, Caravaggio, El Greco, Munch to name a few) betrays an inability to reconcile with internalized suffering that, whether individual or vicarious, demands compassion.
As for being a female writer (inheriting the legacy of Plath and Woolf), women tend to be emotional creatures in general and more in touch with the nature of aesthetics. Neither is it difficult to imagine the duality of pressure upon creative workers to maintain originality that caters to the consumers of that very originality. Writers, artists demand "true voice" yet even that world involves rules in which what is genuinely polished may at times fail to conform to expectations. Such tragedy, or rather irrational fear of tragedy, beset the artist for when inspiration has drained itself, the first to detect such emptiness can be no other than the artist himself. Dr. Cotton has always told me, in midst of battling melancholy and insomnia, that "you must not let the dark overwhelm you completely; learn to bridle the darkness, to surf it." The strength to accomplish such an ordeal perhaps lies not in intellectual energies alone. Where there is madness, the ground is most fertile for grace's infusion.
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