{"id":79,"date":"2005-06-17T21:37:49","date_gmt":"2005-06-18T04:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegerber.wpengine.com\/?p=79"},"modified":"2005-06-17T21:37:49","modified_gmt":"2005-06-18T04:37:49","slug":"writing-from-depression-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/?p=79","title":{"rendered":"Writing from Depression II"},"content":{"rendered":"

A comics blog called The Great Curve<\/a> picked up on my earlier post about writing from depression and commented as follows:<\/p>\n

\nThis reminds me of a book I read recently called Against Depression <\/em>by Peter D. Kramer. In it, the author talks about research into the biological aspects of depression and critiques the way depression has become a part of our culture. He talks about the popular idea that depression is a gateway to creativity. This viewpoint is that without depression we wouldn’t have the works of Poe, van Gogh, Woolfe, and many other great artists. In addition, there’s the idea that melancholy in art gives the work greater depth. He goes on to explain:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“It is no longer that melancholy leads to heroism. Melancholy is<\/em> heroism. The challenge is not voyage or battle but inner struggle. The rumination of the depressive, however solipsistic, is deemed admirable. And this value applies even in cases when the interior examination fails due to a lack of moral courage. No matter that the protagonist remains callow and self-deluding. Melancholic sensitivity is noble by definition.” [pages 221-2]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I haven’t read the Kramer book, but this quoted passage seems to mirror my own thinking of late — though I would draw a sharp distinction between melancholy and clinical depression. Melancholy, like any powerful emotion, can indeed inspire powerful art. (And, of course, *awful* art, as well.) Depression, due to its chronic nature, is something very different. It’s not so much a state of heightened despair as it is of blunt resignation. It blurs perception. It deadens every creative instinct. It sets the writer (or painter or sculptor or cartoonist, I presume) at an emotional and intellectual remove from both the world and the work.<\/p>\n

There’s nothing even vaguely heroic about depression.<\/p>\n

After a while, it’s just colossally boring.<\/p>\n

(And yes, I can define “a while”. It’s two minutes and fifty-two seconds — the playing time of “I Am a Rock”.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A comics blog called The Great Curve picked up on my earlier post about writing from depression and commented as follows: This reminds me of a book I read recently called Against Depression by Peter D. Kramer. In it, the author talks about research into the biological aspects of depression and critiques the way depression […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}