draining's Diaryland Diary

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The Myth of the Mad Genius

THE MYTH OF THE MAD GENIUS
Although madness has, in ancient times and in modern shamanic cultures, proven to be linked with creativity, or even with communion with the gods, I believe the two do not necessarily go hand in hand. In a recent issue of Bipolar Magazine, the actress Patty Duke said that medication helps her creativity because it helps her focus. I am going to use the madness and creativity of Diane Arbus as a model for this. I believe her vision is dismissed as the work of a suicide who was put on a lonely pedestal as being able to see what �we� cannot. Arbus� work should not be seen as a suicide note. She did most of her work during periods when she was not depressed. In fact, she is paraphrased as saying that when she was looking through the ground glass, she was invincible. In addition to many, many sources on Arbus, I will always be studying shamanism (such as Ross Heaven�s book Vodou Shaman) and Kay Redfield Jamison�s Touched With Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic temperament.

7:16 p.m. - 2006-01-26
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