5 ms·

Like the schizophrenic, creative and artistic individuals deny both physical reality and culturally-endorsed immortality projects, expressing a need to create t

by Flankk 5y ago

Like the schizophrenic, creative and artistic individuals deny both physical reality and culturally-endorsed immortality projects, expressing a need to create their own reality. The primary difference is that creative individuals have talents that allow them to create and express a reality that others may appreciate, rather than simply constructing an internal, mental reality. "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." -Steve Jobs

PaulHoule 5y ago
I always find myself turning Tolstoy around. In this case, "Every creative person is creative in a different way but every schizophrenic person is schizophrenic in the same way." There was a dangerous school of thought that came out of the 1960s that held that there was something noble about Schizophrenia. It was popular with both L. Ron Hubbard and Ronald Reagan. The first because he wanted to put psychiatrists out of business, the second because he believed in freedom so much that he wanted set schizophrenic people "free" by closing asylums and turning them loose on the streets. (e.g. people used to be committed to mental hospitals for bad reasons, now it is almost impossible to get into a mental hospital even if you are in acute crisis.) I knew a very pretty girl who had schizoaffective disorder who was still very much a 'girl' in her 30's. She got a lot of appreciation because she was a pretty girl, but she found it hard to wake up in the morning and smoke a cigarette, never mind anything else. We took her into our house when she had nowhere to go and she lived with us for a year and half before the time she freaked out, threatened my wife with a knife, then disappeared into the darkness. Someone who saw a little bit of her might have thought she was a free spirit, she had some craft/artistic talent as well. But it was clear she had a "broken brain" that just didn't process information correctly.

by Flankk 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago

I always find myself turning Tolstoy around. In this case, "Every creative person is creative in a different way but every schizophrenic person is schizophrenic in the same way." There was a dangerous school of thought that came out of the 1960s that held that there was something noble about Schizophrenia. It was popular with both L. Ron Hubbard and Ronald Reagan. The first because he wanted to put psychiatrists out of business, the second because he believed in freedom so much that he wanted set schizophrenic people "free" by closing asylums and turning them loose on the streets. (e.g. people used to be committed to mental hospitals for bad reasons, now it is almost impossible to get into a mental hospital even if you are in acute crisis.) I knew a very pretty girl who had schizoaffective disorder who was still very much a 'girl' in her 30's. She got a lot of appreciation because she was a pretty girl, but she found it hard to wake up in the morning and smoke a cigarette, never mind anything else. We took her into our house when she had nowhere to go and she lived with us for a year and half before the time she freaked out, threatened my wife with a knife, then disappeared into the darkness. Someone who saw a little bit of her might have thought she was a free spirit, she had some craft/artistic talent as well. But it was clear she had a "broken brain" that just didn't process information correctly.