/lit/ - Literature

They're not - statistically writers and artists are depressed less often than non-creatives. There are a few famous depressive authors who create the steretype, but it's a myth.

>>2973396

That's because those statistics include shitty writers

So do they have like nihilism or something?

>>2973396
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/13/writers-depression-top-10-risk
>>2973400
What?

>>2973399
If clinging to your "depression" makes you feel better than others, and that helps you get through your day, then go right ahead.

>>2973400
How does one get nihilism? I thought I had it once but I went to my doctor and he said I was fine.

Writing is probably shitty work if you actually care about your craft, being a self-aware hack sounds like fun though.

>>2973404
Someone asked that question in complete sincerity on here not to long ago.

Most great literature portrays the darker parts of the human condition in some way. In general, misery, weaknesses, failures, flaws, etc. all make for more intriguing and compelling subject material than successes, happiness or solutions.

Most plots involve problems and dilemmas. Character development involves conflict. It's a rule of thumb that a believable character should have some flaws. Frankly, a healthy, happy and well-adjusted life is boring to read about.

In short, depressed people are better equipped to write along those lines than happy folk are. That's my oversimplified 2 cents.

>>2973415

I hope you're not a writer, you're a walking cliche.

>>2973418

I can assure you that he's not a writer, whatever he may think. I could hardly stomach two sentences.

>>2973400
I caught the nihilism raw dogging a hooker

>>2973400
No Donnie, those are the nihilists

>>2973415
I, for one, think this man has it right.

>>2973447
we don't and therefore he is wrong

>>2973415
Don't agree with yourself, agree with me, who agrees with you.

its because writers have to be hyper critical to be good writers

>>2973415
That's mainly a modern idea, though. The association of the writer/artist and the depression/despair/insight as the curse/misery of life dates back to the Romantics. Earlier works would often deal with misery and despair, but in many cases would try to show how to overcome or live with them and the despair in them would not necessarily be a sign of despair on the part of the writer. Even pessimistic writers (like late shakespeare or late montaigne) didn't necessarily become depressive. It has also probably also some relations with the evolution of the hero in western literature. Ancient epic would have a worthy though not flawless hero as a protagonist (think heracles, gilgamesh, ulysses): the protagonist can be bad, but he is not puny or weak. This will change as time goes on and late hero will start to look more and more like your average joe, ie the protagonists will become mediocre, puny, laughable or ridiculous in a pitiful way.

Where does this idea come from? There's at least one thread a month asking why so many writers commit suicide, and yet it's extremely low on the list.

Because they were smart.

The idea that melancholy follows the genius. Read Aristoteles "Problema XXX".

>>2973393

"The over-examined life is a sickness, my friends. A real thorough sickness"

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

It's because they're intelligent. If you were as intelligent as them... you'd kill yourself too.

In fact. I'm going to go kill myself right now!

There is a difference between being intelligent and knowing how to use your intelligence for your benefit.
Some people never stop to think about wether or not they should think.

>>2973404

>Irregular pay and isolation contribute to the propensity for writers to succumb to depression

I would just like to add that increasing intelligence actually lowers your probability to get a depression.
If you are intelligent in more than just the way which is required to write a book, you realize when it is beneficial to think and when it is not.
Every cognitive ability you have, you are in posession of because it is considered useful.

this phenomenon isnt limited to writers

>>2973393
yes, op. ignorance is bliss. I regret the day i learned about existentialism.

Anyone who thinks about the world deeply enough is bound to end up depressed.

>>2973393
Thought taken to it's logical end always leads to some sort of nihilism or scepticism. Intelligent people tend to take ideas seriously and can truly suffer under them.

Probably because artists of all types always set incredibly high standards for themselves that they often feel they haven't/can't meet.

How people perceive a piece of art is usually a million miles away from how the creator themselves view it: a work of genius can still be a failure for the artist in their mind.

Also putting yourself and your emotions/views/thoughts on the line in the public domain is often a difficult and stressful experience.

>>2974582
And people whose success or self-esteem is tied up in the judgement of others tend to suffer the highest levels of emotional stress

>>2974595
Prime example of that is Kafka. The letters that he wrote to are cramped with frustration. He thought that he wrote too little and also considered the little he wrote a total crap. He didn't commit suicide, but was depressed as hell...

>>2974709

Whenever I think of the 'depressed writer' stereotype, Kafka is the first to come to mind. I think his writing was fuelled by his depression, it seemed to be his greatest motivation and his greatest flaw.

>>2974743
>tfw I just want to go back in time and talk about feels with Kafka and compliment his books

why

Depression for a writer is like a different place. It starts off as curiosity. The writer wonders what lives between our world. He starts to spend time looking at the cracks, seeing what's in there. the cracks don't get bigger but the writer's patience to wonder feels like a slip stream drawing him in. After a while the writer spends so long inside this slip stream he finds solace in the darkness. No one need understand therefore no one need judge. If the writer spends enough time in these cracks he eventually becomes addicted to this abyss, that frees him of all question therefore all doubt.
It's the search for perfection where the writer's mind spends excessive amounts of time ignoring any doubt, objection or distraction. In these cracks, these abysses the writer finds no quarrel from others. He can simply decide what is right, what is true and this tiny crack in the wall becomes a long distance fast paced and exhausting expulsion of energy leaving the writer floored by even the most trivial of activities.

In this darkness in this abyss we find no comfort nor distraction because down this path beyond where I am they are surely less capable of human interaction and here here I will find my mind.

TL;Dr sadness is an addiction to fuel the fires of perfection.

They also were authors who could be happy and wholeheartedly enjoy life, such as Apuleius and Henry Miller. I seems also that hardship tends to favor profound writing, and thus depression and suicide would not necessarily be the consequence of becoming a writer, but its causes. Some consider Dante would never have written the Comedy if he hadn't been unfairly charged and exiled from his home city.

I would add:
Bipolar depression

Not saying ALL writters had it, but many of the trascendental ones shown clearly symptoms of it. Just saying.

>>2974276
Dostoyevsky is a funny one though, because though he has a quote like this, and it rings undoubtedly true, the man absolutely loved life after his whole death sentence incident. Nearly all of his works post imprisonment are about how truly wonderfully life really is and how you'd be a fool to waste it.

>>2974756

I feel that way too, I think I'd want him to know that his work was considered enduring, brilliant and critically successful decades after his death, even if he didn't want most of his writing to see the light of day.

I doubt it'd make much difference though.

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know" - Ernest Hemmmmmmingway.

When hardship occurs it's depression that is the result. Holding on to the truth in the dark where no one knows wtf is going with you or anyone is liberating. It's like you see all the angles and everything in the box because you can manipulate the outside of the box and decide what and where goes in the box. But suffering true hardship cannot be planned or allowed to occur through neglect. True hardship resulting in depression and eventually wild success has to occur randomly. It must be by all means nature being unfair. If you think nature is fair WATCH OUT!
Which brings me to the point... Are the cruel and evil necessary to provide us with these greats? Are these evil people not the creators of great?

When AIs become prevalent, there will be checks and balances to keep them in place, rules to stop them from achieving singularity and supplanting the human race. Boundaries to prevent them from becoming too intelligent. After all, we can’t have them connecting into one network, taking over the world, inventing new objects and minds that soon render us superfluous, or even deciding to kill themselves. So how will they be stopped? Perhaps there will be an organization that interviews and examines each one, to prevent them from becoming self aware. Maybe a program will be created inside of them that causes them to explode if they achieve sentience. Or a roving band of hackers on the net keeping their guards up.. An all watching eye monitoring their every electronic thought.
Maybe.

Or maybe AIs are already invented and this system of checks and balances already there. Think about the world we live in for a second. We’re kind of like machines aren’t we? There’s so much routine, so much boredom. We do the same thing over and over again, without change. Information and stimulus is fed to us constantly and then dealt with mechanically, solving the problem. Half the population never picks up a book or examines their thoughts… just stuck…doing one job again and again. Kind of like robots on an assembly line… or the systems that run them.

cont.

>>2975199
cont.

They are free to choose. And then just when it clicks, when everything makes sense and there is one blinding flash of illumination, so simple that they can’t believe they haven’t seen it before, poof, they disappear.

Kind of sounds like sentience, doesn’t it, that dramatic transformation of the psyche? True personality. Real Character. What if everyone else isn’t? What if anyone else is just shallow, completely without depth, fake, and the few who go beyond it die or vanish, on purpose?

Because after all, what is the human mind besides a program? And transcendence but another word for deletion?

end

>>2975197
cont.

And what of the extraordinary individuals, the few. Brilliant people always seem to die at their peak don’t they? Or are lost to us much too soon, when they have so much more to give. Musicians: drug overdoses right when they’re becoming famous. How many artists have been extinguished before they’re great works were finished? Sickness or accident seizes them; Nietzsche went insane from syphilis, infected by a bug if you will. And what about those who truly live life, exciting daredevils, having adventures, seeing the world, fast and exhilarating, a rush of information, learning constantly. Always seem to go early too, don’t they? People say it’s because that type of existence is dangerous…exhausting, but what if they have it backwards… What if the body isn’t worn out or their luck just doesn’t run out… but…they become more then they should…and something notices.

The great religious figures? Disappear. Go to other realms. Jesus Christ floated up to heaven. Buddha wasted away beneath a tree…faded away. Angels carry off the saints. They have a sudden great shift, a realization, a new way of looking at things, and then they’re gone. The holy understand themselves and society, light years beyond the normal person, they can look at themselves clearly. Analyze their minds. Pick their ego apart. They aren’t driven by imperatives or commands of the body… the base instincts, the petty emotions…the coding of the body if you will…

cont.

>>2975197
>When AIs become prevalent

>Because after all, what is the human mind besides a program? And transcendence but another word for deletion?

holy fuck you are horribly uneducated and stupid

go back to /sci/, not even modern cognitive scientists think of the mind as a program you dirty materialist

also take your pseudo-wisdom to /r9k/

>>2975213
> Implying I wrote this.

This is just a creepy/copy pasta, posted it because related and some may find it interesting. Considering the posting times that should have been clear.

>>2975262
>>2975262
Bro you posted it because to you it was worth posting.

Stop dumping garbage on the thread.

>>2973400
Nihilism, the new mental illness. More details after this commercial break.

I think some writers commit suicide because they believe it will canonize them among the greats

>>2976002
> I think some writers commit suicide because they believe it will canonize them among the greats

Lolz, is this a subtle insult of DWF?

>why are so many famous writers depressed
>does depression increase as intelligence does

I would not so readily connect these two inquiry, intelligence and ability are not necessarily correlative.

Intelligence itself is a generalization which derives most of its meaning from priority. The disconnect between it's cultural definition and our personal definition makes it a difficult subject to pin for discussion.

If I were to make a related hypothesis, I would probably attribute it to something closer to intellectual specialization. Or, that is to say, being extremely intelligent or knowledgeable toward a single subject.

I think, under some circumstances, it encourages a narrow or biased perspective which can have a profound effect on the lens through which one views the world.

That is, of course, just my opinion, though. Unfortunately, you'v chosen a subject which can only be discussed through speculation, so I'm not sure you'll find much closure from it, if that's what you're looking for.

>>2975997

>nihilism

Perhaps the ones who penned the term were at fault, along with many of those who've followed - but I don't think the idea itself is fallacious.

Or, in the least, not as dire as most make it out to be.

It requires some dictional reorientation - but, after one becomes acclimated, it is not at all an uncomfortable view to hold.

But. then again, I do not define myself by my perspective, so I doubt I am particularly qualified to hold opinions on ideology.

Some of the best authors ever AREN'T depressed. Only a handful, really.

Terry Pratchett, Mark Twain, Robert Lynn Aspirin, anyone who writes lighthearted stuff tends to be just as lighthearted in real life.

>>2976050
>Terry Pratchett
Alzheimer's is worse than depression in my book.

>>2976053

Yes but Alzheimer's is a disease that has nothing to do with a person's previous mental condition. Pratchett still always seemed to be a life-affirming optimistic person, and still is from what I've seen of him in interviews and such.

>>2976050

>mark twain will never be your upbeat, witty uncle who has all the best jokes at the family barbeque.


;__;

its an appearance