Allow me to lower the tone...

[DeeCrowSeer]

This just in from our news desk, creativity linked with sexual success:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/30112005/80...l-success.html

And it's "news", so it must be FACT... right? :(

[Mikey_C]

And so another stereotype is confirmed. I wonder where they found these 'creative people'?

[Azariel]

Sounds like jibberish - many creative people who didn't date often, REH and HPL! Now as for depression in writers, I agree to that, and we are more prone to it than most people - thats what you get for thinking outside the box - no one gets you fully! But I am a prime example of creativity without sexual sucess - I've concetrated so much on my writing and books, I've become something of a recluse and hermit!

[xidrep]

To avoid depression, I try to have sex with lots of different partners. My wife's not very happy about it, but I tell her its essential for my creativity...

[DeeCrowSeer]

Strangely there was no mention of sex during my degree course, but lots about depression. Perhaps I picked the wrong course?

To avoid sex, I try to depress as many women as possible... wait, no, I think Perdix had a better idea. :)

[Mikey_C]

More interesting, perhaps, are the traits which creative people, particularly poets, apparently share with schizophrenics. http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/...653761,00.html

For a long time, I've speculated that all artistic activity stems from the basic function of shamanism in primitive societies. Think of the earliest cave paintings based on shamanic themes, the dancing, the chants, the drama involved in sympathetic magic. Also - the individuals selected to be shamen in many cultures tend to be those exhibiting signs of what would be deemed mental illness in the modern day.

So this doesn't surprise me.

[DeeCrowSeer]

I think I read a similar article some time ago, and I've been thinking along the same lines regarding "shamans"... although in my case it was mostly to justify being a bit weird. "Back in the day I'd have been a valuable member of the tribe, dammit!" In essence what most of us are doing is having conversations in our head with imaginary people (or drawing imaginary people), which is rather "weird", but stories seem to have some value still... not sure why, but I'm sure there are theories about that sort of thing. I know that I would suck as a hunter/gatherer, so it's comforting to kid myself that there's always been a need for crazy mystics and storytellers.

I recall a documentary we were shown at uni featuring some poets who were given anti-depressants. Some could continue to work, but others couldn't. In a way the depression, or what was behind it, was what sparked their creativity. I can't remember all the details, but I went home and tried to write poems under the influence of cider that evening (which might be why I can't remember all of the details).

I used to believe that my best work was written when I had the blues (or even the "mean reds"), but in reality I think it was just my most self-reflexive work. It was always about miserable writers. Now I've cheered up a bit, I've realised that there are other characters and subjects to explore... although writers still crop up here and there, of course. :)

[Grey Mouser]

Sounds like Shakespeare knew what he was talking about all that time ago when he wrote: 'the lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact...'

[mordenkainen]

I am a prime example of creativity without sexual sucess

I'm a prime example of just the opposite, so I guess you have a point.

[Azariel]

I am a prime example of creativity without sexual sucess

I'm a prime example of just the opposite, so I guess you have a point.

Thus blowing the whole idea outta the water sort of speak :D

[lemec]

It sounds like I am going to have to get creative real quick! ;)

[lemec]

Sounds like jibberish - many creative people who didn't date often, REH and HPL! Now as for depression in writers, I agree to that, and we are more prone to it than most people - thats what you get for thinking outside the box - no one gets you fully! But I am a prime example of creativity without sexual sucess - I've concetrated so much on my writing and books, I've become something of a recluse and hermit!

Hello Azariel, being a hermit can be dangrous state of being. :lol:

sometimes you can't help it with all the cool books out there and now the internet, and I stayed away from contact for awhile here and there, I think there is something to that 'cabin fever' ;)

I think you were not being too serious about that, but I feel it's best to be among our fellow humans,unless that is the desert sun talking to me. :lol:

Anyway, one does come up with some wild ideas and concepts when alone for extended periods. :D

I don't think that afore mentioned article has any credibility though. There are always studies linking something to something else and is in no way true or capable of being proved. The sex thing might be true to 50% of artists, but then there is the other half. That insane bit might have some truth with Leonardo DaVinci,hehe,but that's the exception, insanity is probaly more linked to one's contentment among other things including physical problems. I did not mean to sound so serious on this subject, I am not, just thinking.

:)

[Azariel]

I think you were not being too serious about that, but I feel it's best to be among our fellow humans,unless that is the desert sun talking to me. :lol:

You know me to well. . . :lol:

[spaced_moorcock]

Personally I've found that caffeine has aided my creative process more than sex. I have a strange reaction to caffeine and music and they kinda send me on strange tangents. It's too hard to write during sex and all I want to do is fall asleep afterwards. :)

Strange to think that I've been more productive in the three months that I've been single than in the three years that I had a girlfriend. Maybe the flustration could be aiding the creative process?

[Mikey_C]

Maybe the flustration (sic) could be aiding the creative process?

That's what Freud called 'sublimation'.

My 'toilet reading' at present is Hammer of the Gods, an 'unauthorised' () biography of Led Zeppelin. It would appear that they didn't have much sublimation - just 'ids' running rampant.

It's actually got me more interested in the psychology of the groupies who seem to have been prepared to suffer all sorts of degradation just to 'get close to the stars'. I expect writers get them as well.

It all seems so apelike!