I wonder.
These days, whenever I hear or view some brilliant piece of work, my immediate thought is, Oh, how hard their life must have been. /be.
As long as I’ve known him, one of Sean’s favorite movies has been Amadeus. Released in 1984 and won a bunch of awards I think, including Best Picture. I remember watching it with him early in our marriage and enjoyed it too, but remember it being quite the trip.
Recently we decided to watch it again and I found I could hardly stand it. I watch movies for all kinds of reasons and “to have a front row seat to the carnage of someone else’s demon” doesn’t rank super high? Still, I felt like it might have been important. I mean it did win Best Picture. So after a pause (as in, days-long) I told Sean I was ready to watch some more. I think we’ve watched it in three separate installments and still haven’t finished it. Because I don’t think I can bear to.
Now, I love seeing brilliance take shape. I love watching others’ expressions when they first listen, Salieri’s brooding lifelong bitterness. It’s indulgent and fantastical. And we are all rewarded with his gift along the way.
But it comes at a price and we might see that too. Its implications can be devastating, and often makes things inside that I try to keep quiet, startle and squirm.
Mozart’s life was cut short by a slew of illnesses (he died at age 35!) but aside from that, he always struggled to exist in a world that wanted his gift, but was not designed for his functionality and perhaps ultimate success. He struggled with organizing his life and his finances, with his relationships, his self-esteem, no doubt the pressures of being a prodigy. He produced 600 works in 35 years. I don’t know about you but this sounds pathological to me. There is some speculation that he did not necessarily “compose” music but suffered from auditory hallucinations (!) Read this:
Through hallucinations, music known to people in their immediate surroundings but cannot consciously remember [6]. Listening to music can create illusions and perceptual alterations, some of the musical hallucinations are: listening to perseverations of tones, loud music that interferes with sleep and creates a dysfunction in your daily life [7].” (full abstract can be found here).
I remember watching him feverishly writing down all the music over-filling his brain and thinking, wow! What genius. And now I can imagine that he is simply purging himself of the demons that plague in the only way he can. It’s how he coped. I can imagine that quite well.
I recently read Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. And it’s the same for him. He had been heavily drinking when he wrote The Shining, about an alcoholic ex-teacher, not even realizing it was himself he was characterizing. And he was drinking and doing hard drugs throughout other works. The Tommyknockers, about a crashed spaceship, the dormant aliens overtaking the curious humans’ minds. And Misery, about a writer who’s held captive by a psychotic nurse.
His family and friends held an intervention and his wife gave him two weeks to decide either to get help or get out. He states:
”What finally decided me was Annie Wilkes, the psycho nurse in Misery. Annie was coke, Annie was booze, and I decided I was tired of being Annie’s pet writer.”
I haven’t read many of his stories, but I’ve seen the film versions and several are some of my favorites. And I do wonder about where he’s been and had to go in order to write these stories? I wonder if letting out the demons is more acceptable to others and easier to take if we dress them in costume, make characters out of them?
It illustrates to me again the price some people must pay for brilliance. And it makes me want to express it directly as a cognizant witness to the darkness at play, part of the design, the story, the orchestration:
“Oh this illness of Mozart’s is just so beautiful. I love to listen to it on my morning walks.”
“Stephen King’s personal demons are so entertaining.”
“Van Gogh’s tortured soul is so swirly and hypnotic.”
To me, that’s what we’re seeing. The transfiguration of pain. I feel I must acknowledge it right alongside— “I’m so sorry for how he must have suffered, and so in awe of the way he rendered it.” But is it callous to connect the beauty to the pain, or ascribing it? To me it feels hopeful. “Look what you did with it, Vincent!”
I recently read an art critic say, “Some of us are gifted. Some of us are doomed.”
For some reason, I put those things together. And for the artist themself, I believe a lot can go into the mixed bag of experiencing, and perhaps determining, what inspires and what impedes. Utilizing vs futilizing. Making the debilitative facilitative (ok, I’m done).
The relationship is a tricky one. I feel the correlation.
But not necessarily the causation. It can be intentional, not just a sad byproduct. It’s entirely up to us if that means artistic restructuring or mere suffering. Pain unorganized. Like clay, that hurts. I don’t know where creation comes from, only that those who do it must know where to find it and dare to do so.
“Suffering is not the source of creativity – instead, being aware of one’s self and being mature with who you have been, who you are and who you want to be, is the true source of creativity.”
-Asa Daniels
John Forbes Nash Jr, the mathematician played by Russell Crowe in the biographical film A Beautiful Mind, had schizophrenia. After much trial with medications, he opted to go off of them and learned to ignore his hallucinations because the meds blunted his intellect. Can you imagine? This sounds unfathomably difficult to me. So many of us already have to filter through our thoughts, syphoning out the good, the helpful. But hallucinations sounds like a whole other thing.
It’s tragic. But I wonder. Would you be inclined to say, “If only he didn’t have this mental illness. He could have made more mathematical discoveries”? Because what I want to say to John is, “Sorry you had to have schizophrenia in order to reach further than most people do. Thank you for your contributions and great sacrifice.” What a hero.
“I can see there's a connection between not following normal thinking and doing creative thinking. I wouldn't have had good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally.”
-John Nash Jr.
That’s how I interpret now. The high achievements by unique individuals- the art, the music, the science, the engineering, the discoveries—that John’s brain could tap into math in a way few could but perhaps in doing so, also unleashed an incredible hardship. There’s a dichotomous quality about beauty and demons. Together they make art and meaning, manifestations of some kind of cursed creativity on display in a venue designed for it, for us— we, the patrons and beneficiaries.
So maybe this is exactly what we sign up for when we view/watch/read/listen to works. A certain kind of carnage. An arena of gladiators (yay, second Russell Crowe reference). So yes, let us purchase tickets and pay the fee. And I propose that along with thanking them for the beauty and enrichment, we appreciate the price.
This letter was fascinating and deep. Thank you for getting me thinking about something besides dinner and homework and the stupid leaking pipe in my basement. I feel like I need to read it 3 or 10 more times before I might have smart enough words to respond to it. No, just any words really. 😂 Not my forte- but I’m so grateful words are yours. I enjoy your writings and how thought provoking they are. This topic was so interesting and kind of sad too. Definitely will make me look, think and feel differently when I see/hear/etc these masterpieces. Thank you!
This made me think of so many different things. Obv most of them spiritual/religious because all throughout scriptures the divine and amazing and indescribable have come with such a steep price. (See beauty for ashes). I.e. Salvation comes through someone else’s sacrifice and suffering. But I’ve learned God is the God of the contrast and contrariness and turns all of that to beauty.