The Indigo Light of Insight

Posted on April 21, 2005 in Crosstalk Depression Originality & Creativity Reflections

K. posted a link to an article by Peter D. Kramer on the subject of mood disorders — particularly depression — and creativity. As an unpublished (and procrastinating) poet, I feel moved to share some of my experience with the disease and its effects on my writing.

As I write this, I feel depressed. What I can say for the depression is that it opens a door to all the other times when I felt low. I remember events from twenty, thirty years ago. This is also true about the times when I feel normal or manic: the easiest memories to evoke are those from states like the ones I am in. I tend not to recall euphoric times when I am sad and vice versa. The brain operates that way, though I will state that the barriers are not steel or even brick.

If artists suffer from depression and bipolar disorder more than others, I suspect that the reason for it is because in those moods you may not feel satisfied with doing anything else. For me, writing is one of the few things I can do — if even for a moment or two. When I am in mania, writing is nearly impossible. I go hypergraphic, write sentences whose only sense is that they consist of words and each word has a meaning all its own. I can reap good material from hypergraphia, but I must wait until I am in a normal or depressed mood. Then I must painstakingly put the images together until I construct a new meaning, a new awareness of a point in time.

I see my depression as neither friend nor enemy in my creative process. It’s just a mood I pass through, just like hypomania and the normal moods I feel more and more. The moods are not a blessed cross, not a dark night of the soul which opens me up to the indigo light of insight. They are symptoms of a disease. But what a beautiful disease it can be and how stunning, sometimes, are the images that come out of it.