LUDW!G:

Ludwig van:

At this point, finding evidence for the social cause for mental illness is like finding Volkswagen beetles on the road. Almost invariably, if not invariably, one discovers that an artist reputed for having bipolar disorder suffered from some sort of abuse, often starting early on. In Beethoven’s case, it was his alcoholic father, who insisted that Ludwig ought to be the next Mozart. Beethoven succeeded, of course, but it is difficult to say whether he did this to spite his father or to appease (read: assuage!) him. It’s simply mindboggling that non-creative people tend to associate creativity with mental illness as though the former caused the latter, rather than both originating from a common and external cause. Yes: prodigy and talent often occur intrinsically, but is it not an envious reaction to this which seeks to “supplement” the praise we accord to natural talent with the condemnation with which we treat “natural illness”, thereby more effectively employing creativity towards our own, uninspired purposes? The statistics themselves tell us nothing, although uncreative people will fail to interpret statistics except as “truth”. My theory is this: that abuse heightens the necessity for a naturally gifted individual to use art as a COPING MECHANISM, and as this habit becomes a clinical necessity the drive to do so professionally, thereby escaping any worldly impetus to its expression, becomes more fervent, and the pain required to reach the professional state must by necessity always surpass the pain one fears of losing that creativity, which even the most banal headshrinkers call an “outlet”. Art, to these people, becomes not a means to an end, but an end in and of itself, whose rewards are mere sanity. In Ludwig van Beethoven’s case, the drive was to assuage his father’s rage, but by one’s own means, most probably long after the father had passed away or given up. Beethoven would not even let deafness stop him, for though he was immune to any further acts of parental abuse at that point, the pain was still real, and just as he could never lose that internal scarring, neither could he halt the symphonies in his head.

Dm.A.A.