depression - source of inspiration or creativity killer?

[dingformung]

... or transformer of aesthetical taste?

 

I'm not suffering from depression and I'm not planning to do so but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.

[mcbpete]

Either/Both - For some depression will make you wanna withdraw into your own world that your creativity will end up thriving upon, for others it'll stop you being arsed to do anything even remotely productive

[flacid]

Inspiration. 

[dingformung]

Inspiration. 

But how does the depressed know how they would perform without their handicap? Maybe the stream of inspiration would be even stronger

[joshuatxuk]

Either/Both - For some depression will make you wanna withdraw into your own world that your creativity will end up thriving upon, for others it'll stop you being arsed to do anything even remotely productive

 

Depressive black metal is a good example of it causing some very troubled artists to produce vast, cathartic discographies. I would not say it's more often than not though, especially with other factors (drugs and/or heavy drinking, expectations of fans or major labels or money) involved. Cobain was working on material up until his suicide but in his suicide note he stated he had not felt excitement in writing music for awhile.

[mcbpete]

he stated he had not felt excitement in writing music for awhile.

Aye that's a pretty common feeling for clinical stage depression - It's like the entire mood is heavily compressed between the 'extremes' of "pfff that's not that good" and "hmmmm that's alright I guess"

[dingformung]

 

he stated he had not felt excitement in writing music for awhile.

Aye that's a pretty common feeling for clinical stage depression - It's like the entire mood is heavily compressed between the 'extremes' of "pfff that's not that good" and "hmmmm that's alright I guess"

 

These sound like pretty shitty extremes

[joshuatxuk]

 

 

he stated he had not felt excitement in writing music for awhile.

Aye that's a pretty common feeling for clinical stage depression - It's like the entire mood is heavily compressed between the 'extremes' of "pfff that's not that good" and "hmmmm that's alright I guess"

 

These sound like pretty shitty extremes

 

 

well the other extremes for cobain where his existing mental health issues, heroin addiction, the fact that he had a family to take care of, and self-imposed personal pressures on not selling out artistically...

[dingformung]

So the conclusion is not to romantize depression?

[flacid]

 

Inspiration. 

But how does the depressed know how they would perform without their handicap? Maybe the stream of inspiration would be even stronger

 

 

 

Maybe it isn't deemed as a handicap and maybe their inspiration would be lower? 

[mcbpete]

So the conclusion is not to romantize depression?

Pretty much ! Depression is not necessarily an actively downbeat state of mind, more a big duvet cover that's a nice and fuzzy and safe inside with any concept outside that duvet being a big scary concept on top of a tall freezing mountain. It's safe in the duvet.

[Candiru]

Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, Layne Staley, Ian Curtis would've been more creative if they didn't just totally fucking die.

[beerwolf]

very good question, and I'm not going to try to answer it!

 

I've always been intrigued between with of what can be classed as depressing music as I've usually found most of this music strangely uplifting. There is definitely something to do with more synth based music which I find inspiring (which has that ethereal, elegiac, ghostly feeling) than depressing folk/acoustic music. Nick Drake and Elliot Smith? I cannot listen too, that seriously is a dark downer.

[dingformung]

 

 

Inspiration. 

But how does the depressed know how they would perform without their handicap? Maybe the stream of inspiration would be even stronger

 

 

 

Maybe it isn't deemed as a handicap and maybe their inspiration would be lower? 

 

 

Maybe you are talking about deep sadness. Sadness is something that you can sublimate into something different, say art. Depression is more complex and greatly consists of missing something. And it's hard to turn nothing into something

 

 

So the conclusion is not to romantize depression?

Pretty much ! Depression is not necessarily an active state of mind, more a big duvet cover that's a nice and fuzzy and safe inside with any concept outside that duvet being a big scary concept on top of a tall freezing mountain. It's safe in the duvet.

 

So the depression is actually something that helps a person survive?

 

Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, Layne Staley, Ian Curtis would've been more creative if they didn't just totally fucking die.

And David Foster Wallace. He wrote so wise things and finally shot himself in the head, it's a shame :(

[DavieAddison]

So the conclusion is not to romantize depression?

 

Everybody's dying just to get the disease

[beerwolf]

I can elevate my depressive moods with fresh air and exercise, maybe the more introverted artistic types cure their depression with writing a good song....

[dingformung]

 

So the conclusion is not to romantize depression?

 

Everybody's dying just to get the disease

 

 

I don't understand?

I can elevate my depressive moods with fresh air and exercise, maybe the more introverted artistic types cure their depression with writing a good song....

Hmm, but I think "depressive moods" aren't really what depression is. I know what you mean, going outside can greatly change perspective immediately if you feel stressed 

[mcbpete]

So the depression is actually something that helps a person survive?

 

Well yeah it could be seen as a survival instinct, though you have to make the distinction between surviving and living. You could probably survive in an empty room with just bread and water though it would hardly be considered living!

[dingformung]

 

So the depression is actually something that helps a person survive?

Well yeah it could be seen as a survival instinct, though you have to make the distinction between surviving and living. You could probably survive in an empty room with just bread and water though it would hardly be considered living!

 

So the best question to ask is: Is it healable? If yes: How? And if no: What are the circumstances in which depression arises and what can be done to fix them in order to prevent more people fall into this trap plus how can depressed people be treated to minimize their suffering? questions psychiatrists, psychologists and philosophers probably already thought of in a sophisticated way... maybe I should go study psychology as this is really interesting and a real chance to make things better. Have to think about that

 

 

thanks for all the answers

[auxien]

I'm not sure there's any connection. Have their been realistic studies that found the depressed are more prone to being artistic? Or maybe just they're usually better at it?

 

I could speculate all day of course, but I'm curious about facts and maybe some of your personal stories. The generalities between on something like this get really broad and imaginative. The thing is for every Cobain, there's literally hundreds if not thousands of musicians who probably don't have major mental health problems. But I imagine there's stats for both sides of that coin, just curious if there's been any reasonable collection of facts about it all.

 

That said, I've been in varying levels of depressive states for about 20 years, which coincidentally syncs up exactly with when I wanted to start playing and creating music and occasionally other forms of art. On occasion the music is directly tied to the depression, but that's not particularly common. They sort of feed each other, in a way, in that the depression can inspire certain feelings I want to express via music, and sometimes the music can consume my mind and time so much that it feels like it causes me to separate more from society than I normally would. The former there is more common than the latter, I'd guess, but it's hard to pinpoint from within it.

[dingformung]

I'm not sure about actual studies but I can imagine that the depressed tries to heal himself with the music (I think I already heard of something called "music therapy") or distracts himself from the depression

 

But isn't it some kind of an artist cliché?

 

Edit:

 

So this is the effect of music on depression but I wonder what the effect of depression on music is:

 

 

The music groups had more power and less pain, depression and disability than the control group, but there were no statistically significant differences between the two music interventions. The model predicting both a direct and indirect effect for music was supported.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2006.03860.x/full

[ghsotword]

Bipolar disorder (which Cobain likely had) comes with elevated creativity in the hypomania/mania stages

[chim]

Some melancholy may inspire great works. Depression is a killer.

[xox]

if it motivates you then it's not depression (the illness). ppl confuse mild depressive moods with depression

 

state that can be very productive and is related with depression is the hypomanic state which is a defense mechanism against depression but when you're in that state your not depressed

[cwmbrancity]

if you can access it, this BBC-R4 program on art, disease, pain management & a stack of other info/discussion relevant to the subject, can be heard here

 

art in itself can heal some conditions:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08k1sv9