ATTN JMS: How's Your Sanity? ;-)

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: ATTN JMS: How's Your Sanity? ;-)
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 No. | DATE        |  FROM
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s  1: Sep 22, 1996: Laura Gillenwater <tworks19 at pop3.nfi.com>
*  2: Sep 23, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)

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From: Laura Gillenwater <tworks19 at pop3.nfi.com>
Lines: 40

I was reading an article in the September issue of Health magazine that I 
thought might interest you...

Apparently, some psychiatrist in England wanted to find out if Lord 
Byron's assertion that "All poets are mad" was an accurate one. So he 
read lots of biographies of 100 famous male writers and looked for signs 
of mental problems (such as delusions, schizophrenia, etc.). Then he 
divided the writers up by discipline: poets, novelists, and playwrights, 
and compared the groups for mental stability. What he found was that 
poets were actually the most mentally stable of the three groups. He had 
thought that poetery, being "more removed from reality than novels and 
plays, would also make the poet feel more disconnected from his or her 
own life." What he found, however, was that, when compared to the general 
population, all the writers were more "twisted" than the general 
population but that novelists and playwrights were even more so than 
poets. To quote the psyciatrist (whose name is Felix Post):

"A poet is expressing his own feelings toward his beloved or toward 
nature, but a novelist or playwright has to make up other people, their 
joys and tragedies, and you cannot do that without a tremendous empathy 
that is painful and disturbing."

He also points out that, as Dickens's heroines died on the page, their 
creator often wept over his pen. (Btw - did any tears land on the 
keyboard for Kosh?)

One last interesting note - he found that two-thirds of the playwrights 
(and over half of the novelists) experienced rocky relationships (so I 
guess you're in good company there).

Anyway, thought you might find this interesting. Do you think his 
conclusions are reasonable?

Laura

P.S. Can't wait for the new eps to begin - thanks for the great ride so 
far!




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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Lines: 28

Re: higher levels of mental disorder among writers...I don't agree with
that at all.

     Neither do I.

Shut up, nobody asked you for your opinion.

     Hey, I have access to the keyboard too, you know.

I'm not listening.

     Neither am I.

Never mind...let me get back to this later, when Certain Parties --

     I heard that.

-- have gone to sleep.  Meanwhile, I'd just pass this along for your
edification: in surveys of the clinically insane, the #1 goal for most of
them when they get out, what they want...is to become psychologists or
psychiatrists...like the fellow who made this analysis of writers.



 jms



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