the upside of down?

a couple of interesting articles have floated through my life in the past several days.

both deal with “negative” states of being and their effects on creativity. specifically, that depression can give rise to rumination and focus, leading to great works and problem-solving, and that self-doubt is an affliction suffered by most (if not all) artists.

both articles seemed curiously timed, in terms of when they popped into my consciousness, and both were helpful in different ways. while i may not agree with everything posited – for example, what about those people for whom depression and self-doubt and sadness become completely immobilizing? so that no work is produced? – reading about situations relevant to my own at the moment was strangely comforting.

you can read the new york times article on the upside of depression here. (you’ll need to be a registered user, but it literally takes two seconds and is free.)

and the wall street journal’s piece about self-doubt among creative types can be found here.

maybe it’s the “everybody hurts” message that made these stories resonate with me - knowing that plenty of people in the arts (and elsewhere) struggle with the same issues i sometimes find suffocating - i dunno. but i found the content of both to be some food for thought.

or more ruminating, as it were.