Creativity and Suffering

In Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung writes:

"The artist's life cannot be otherwise than full of conflicts, for two forces are at war within him on the one hand the common human longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life, and on the other a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire. The lives of artists are as a rule so highly unsatisfactory, not to say tragic, because of their inferiority on the human and personal side, and not because of a sinister dispensation. There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of the creative fire…How can we doubt that it is his art that explains the artist, and not the insufficiencies and conflicts of his personal life? These are nothing but the regrettable results of the fact that he is an artist, that is to say, a man who from his very birth has been called to a greater task than the ordinary mortal. A special ability means a heavy expenditure of energy in a particular direction, with a consequent drain from some other side of life.”

Similar notions can be found in the words of other creatives, such as Anaïs Nin, whose diaries are notorious for depictions of intense inner turmoil and conflict, which functioned, perhaps simultaneously, at expense of her own personal well-being, while also being the catalyst for her brilliant literary works. In one of her diaries, Nin writes:

“There were always, in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning, and another who wanted to bring beauty, grace, and aliveness to people…”

Throughout her works, Nin describes constant conflict between her various self states, lack of stability, and only transient feelings of security in relationships. Her writing reflects great suffering - which, arguably, may have been the impetus for her desire to create, and, perhaps ultimately, for her success as an artist.

More often than not, some of the most talented people pay a high price for their gifts, for their ability to create and perform. If suffering and brilliance are two sides of the same coin, indispensable for one another - therapeutically, what do we do about it?