• What I've learned: depression and songwriting.

We've all read of Van Gogh's ear, Hemingway's prowess with self-inflicted shotgun wounds, Kurt Cobain's last days. And we think to ourselves, or at least a lot of us do, that great mental depression and great art must go hand in hand.

I couldn't disagree more.

As a person who has dealt with depression for as long as he can remember, I see it as something that gets in the way of great art. Because when you're depressed, you don't want to play your guitar, write a poem, sing, create. Or I least I don't. No, I want to sleep, or drink a little, or maybe just have a nice cup of coffee in the hope the caffeine will perk me up.

More important, I think people confuse depression with hardship. Personally, I believe that emotionally intense times/thoughts/conversations can lead to interesting, maybe even great, art, but they are very different from what you feel as a result of depression. An intense experience -- even a happy one, for matter! -- triggers a raft of feelings, stirs up your thoughts, make you look at the world differently. Depression is deadening. It kills thought, or at the very least, creates a very one dimensional thought pattern, hardly the kind of rich, nuanced, layers thinking required of lasting, meaningful art. In fact, research has shown that autopsies of people who suffered depression have brains that are missing gobs of healthy tissue compared to people who were not depressed.

I used to romanticize depression but now I hate depression. I fight it every way I can, and I will not for a moment give it credit for anything I've done, because I have never written a song in its clutches. Only when I've come out of an episode, have I been creative. Clint Eastwood calls me a member of the Pussy Generation for my condition. So be it. But I side with the folks who characterize depression as a disease: you can treat it, you can reduce it, but there is no surefire way to cure it. Not even Scientology.

If you have depression you're tortured for sure, but not necessarily an artist.

If anyone out there reading this post is interested, the best book I've read on depression is Against Depression, by Peter Kramer.

Comments

[catherine]

"...I have never written a song in its clutches."

That is a powerful statement. I think this is a really interesting POV. It's true that the (supposed) romanticized link between madness and art is almost cliche; but madness really means mental illness, of which depression is one kind, and no one I know who suffers from any kind thinks it's glorious or energizing.

[Harold]

I agree with Catherine's comment.

But, don't take the research you found as more than an interesting factoid. It says it's talking about an hypothesis regarding possible causes for delayed memory based on tests given to people on two occasions. Nothing about autopsies.

Don't be too hard on poor old Clint. He's got his image to maintain. And if over the next 30 years our standard of living goes substantially up you will say the the next generation is the pussy generation. I do think this will take a strong dose of luck but I wouldn't bet against it.

[Dave Tutin]

I think the notion of the tortured artist actually comes from the fact that those artists often choose to live lives that are outside the bounds of normality for most people.

Madness is a point of view.

Also, deep, contemplative thought that artists tend to engage in - as well their natural 'loner' tendencies - also get them classes BY OTHERS as depressed or depressing.

Choosing to visit the dark corners of one's mind is risky business. And many people cannot understand why we even go there.

I like Leonard Cohen's suggestion that as we age the brain cells linked to depression die off and we get naturally less morose. It's not that only the depressed die young, it's only the young die depressed.

[Jeff]

Dad, there is evidence of cellular breakdown as a result of depression, but I'm still trying to find the right link. As for Clint, I wasn't being hard on him, and I agree, as life gets easier (less physically demanding), the older generation looks at the younger one and says, "You have no idea how easy you have things!"

Dave, I hope Leonard's right!

[Carreen]

Interesting subjects really - depression, creativity what if any linkage? Here is my take on the subject. The mind cannot be separated neatly into that which creates and that which doesn't. Our unique experiences give us something which we either have the desire to spin into something- to generate, create from or not. Some people don't have much impulse in that direction, whether depressed or not. Some people seem like an open valve which never turns off in terms of an artistic prolific tendency(are they the ones who are never depressed?) Some of us are more or less "gifted"and some just have more drive and energy. Artists describe that during fallow times, the "energy", "lifeforce" is gone, perhaps never to return. For those who have a taste for creation this feels deadening. Perhaps as you suggest, seasons of depression are just lost chapters, but perhaps those times feel all the more tragic to those whose minds also yearn for poetry, beauty and music. Maybe it is this cycle that allows for rebirth. To think we should be able to harness depression or elevate it or think of it as a necessary dark side of creativity seems to me to be beside the point. Acceptance and patience may combat depression as much as a full blown fight against it. I don't mean simply succumb to it but to know that many creative types also have minds which work that way is not romanticizing or excusing it but perhaps making it less lonely. When the desire to PLAY comes back you can feel thankful and compassionate towards yourself and the world for being so complicated and messy- and, yes, you will create something from that.