Remember the mad genius mathematician in A Beautiful Mind? I've been reading that book about John Nash by Sylvia Nasar because my biography-in-progress is about a woman who conversed with spirits and was hospitalized--against her will.
Nasar quotes an item found in Nash's mother's scrapbook, which she placed there when Nash was a child, no doubt in an attempt to reassure herself. Mrs. Nash is quoting Angelo Patri:
"QUEER LITTLE TWISTS AND QUIRKS GO INTO THE MAKING OF AN INDIVIDUAL. To suppress them all and follow clock and calendar and creed until the individual is lost...is to be less than true to our inheritance....Life, that gorgeous quality of life, is not accomplished by following another man's rules. It is true we have the same hungers and the same thirsts, but they are for different things and in different ways and in different seasons....LAY DOWN YOUR OWN DAY, FOLLOW IT TO ITS NOON, or you will sit in an outer hall listening to the chimes but never reaching high enough to strike your own."
I don't know who Angelo Patri is or was, but he's onto something there.
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LOVE the line: Lay down your own day, follow it to its noon...
Wow.
I do too. The more I read of A Beautiful Mind, the sadder and more complicated it gets. Nash was stumbling around the Princeton campus mumbling to himself for months at a time, thinking he was starting a world government. Then he'd have a period where he made the most remarkable breakthroughs in math that anybody has done. If the two are connected, he paid a price I wouldn't want to pay.
For success as an artist, I'm told that it helps to have somebody bipolar in your family. That way you get just enough of the funky brain chemistry to be imaginative but not out of control.
Any thoughts on that?
Oops, that Anonymous was me.
Kay Redfield Jamison's book "Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" is a fascinating read - combines literary quotes and anecdotes of renowned poets and writers and artists with scientific research data. She also wrote a memoir called "An Unquiet Mind."
My personal theory is that many "artists" could be dx'ed with the milder Cyclothymia - which I think of as bipolar d/o with the peaks and valleys much flatter across time and thus more easily managed w/out meds. It also seems to have a strong seasonal occurrence - with spring and fall being the most likely times for the swings in mood.
I hadn't made the connection in my own family until a few years ago - there is a strong history of "extravigant" behavior and also alcoholism - and looking back, along with asking more questions of my parents, I suspect many of these family members were undiagnosed bipolar disorders, using alcohol to self-medicate.
That said, fall is on the way and I suspect my summer torpor will give over to some wonderful writing time!! I really like what happens when I do major edits in spring and fall. :)
Kay Redfield Jamison's book "Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" is a fascinating read - combines literary quotes and anecdotes of renowned poets and writers and artists with scientific research data. She also wrote a memoir called "An Unquiet Mind."
My personal theory is that many "artists" could be dx'ed with the milder Cyclothymia - which I think of as bipolar d/o with the peaks and valleys much flatter across time and thus more easily managed w/out meds. It also seems to have a strong seasonal occurrence - with spring and fall being the most likely times for the swings in mood.
I hadn't made the connection in my own family until a few years ago - there is a strong history of "extravigant" behavior and also alcoholism - and looking back, along with asking more questions of my parents, I suspect many of these family members were undiagnosed bipolar disorders, using alcohol to self-medicate.
That said, fall is on the way and I suspect my summer torpor will give over to some wonderful writing time!! I really like what happens when I do major edits in spring and fall. :)
Kay Redfield Jamison's book "Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" is a fascinating read - combines literary quotes and anecdotes of renowned poets and writers and artists with scientific research data. She also wrote a memoir called "An Unquiet Mind."
My personal theory is that many "artists" could be dx'ed with the milder Cyclothymia - which I think of as bipolar d/o with the peaks and valleys much flatter across time and thus more easily managed w/out meds. It also seems to have a strong seasonal occurrence - with spring and fall being the most likely times for the swings in mood.
I hadn't made the connection in my own family until a few years ago - there is a strong history of "extravigant" behavior and also alcoholism - and looking back, along with asking more questions of my parents, I suspect many of these family members were undiagnosed bipolar disorders, using alcohol to self-medicate.
That said, fall is on the way and I suspect my summer torpor will give over to some wonderful writing time!! I really like what happens when I do major edits in spring and fall. :)
my goodness - I don't know how I managed to repeat myself 3x! -- sorry!
What a pair of savvy commenters. I log in as Anonymous and you show up in triplicate. But your message is well worth repeating.
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