Artistry, it seems, is bound up in experience. It is experience, of a sort. My experience, the artist's experience, my experience of the srtist's work, and the experience of place and time - bound together in our mutual experiences of each other (both myself and the artist, and myself with their work).
But the question I raised a couple weeks ago, to what extent have we medicated away some of our finest artists? To what extent do we fear experiences of angst, depression, or mania, such that we pour pharmaceuticals down our throats and thus make everything "okay."
I considered this again with respect to Virginia Woolf. While gifted in remarkable ways, she was also (by most accounts) manic-depressive. She wrote powerfully moving things, and then one day put rocks in her pockets and walked into the river.
Probably if we'd had her on Xanax, Zoloft, Prozac, or something equally stunning, she'd be "just fine." But I doubt she'd be interesting. Or worth reading.
I find that I wonder about these things when I consider all our great artists who have been tortured and gifted... folks like Vincent VanGogh, Auguste Rodin... the list goes on. I wonder sometimes, if they lived in the modern age, whether they would contribute the same gifts to our common benefit, or would they just settle down and become Business Consultants at Deloitte?
I also wonder about this when I'm going through one of my depressive phases. You know - when the biochemistry dips a little, from lack of sunshine, or a crappy week of work, or the besetting of various traumas... and I wake up thinking, "just a few more days of sleep, and I"ll be fine. When a trip to the grocery store is a mammoth undertaking, and I have to plan all day in order to go to the driving range...
If I was on medication, I'd be "just fine." But owuld I cease to be Andy? Is our identity tied up in our experience of who we are, along with others' experiences of us... and along the way - does this make us a piece of art all to ourselves?
Scripturally, we are described as God's artistry - we are the experience of his creation, and we experience God's handiwork as we experience ourselves and know ourselves better. Along the way, then, it seems reasonable to suggest that if we are altering who we are in the application of self-altering medication, we cease to become who we are meant to be.
Of course, the big caveat her is the question of betterment: do we become more, or less of who we are because of the medication? Probably this is an answer that can only be answered by the individual in consultation with their physician, but the book Listening to Prozac offers an intriguing look into the psychology of psychiatric medication.
For myself, I refuse the application of medication because I don't find my moments of depresison all that stifling. (Plus - the ability to know I'm depressed excites my competitive nature, and I defiantly shout down the depression, and refuse to be subdued by it. Plus - I have rules against calling in sick simply because I'm tired.) But I deeply respect the needs of others who have to have the medicine in order to function.
I just hope we haven't lost any artists along the way, or that the voices of prophets aren't being drowned in pharmaceuticals.
