How melancholia can be a catalyst for great creativity | Academy of Ideas

Most of the time, [repressional mechanisms] successfully fulfill their purpose of limiting the content of consciousness. The majority of people largely go through life without succumbing to extreme states of world weariness and with the conviction that although life is difficult, it has its victories and is ultimately worth the effort.

But what happens when these mechanisms fail? What happens when an individual becomes increasingly aware of the tragic sense of life?

"Most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness."

– attributed to Peter Wesel Zapffe in Academy of Ideas:Kierkegaard and Zapffe: Beauty, Suffering, and the Nature of Genius

The [repressional] mechanisms by which individuals artificially limit the content of consciousness are isolation, anchoring, and distraction.

[Some humans'] dispositions render them unable to utilize the repression mechanisms which protects the masses from world weariness.

Without the repressional mechanisms that keep most individuals on a relatively even psychic keel day in and day out, the only way such individuals could persevere in life after spending so much time staring into the abyss is to break free from their despair in an almost superhuman state of joy and power.

Via sublimation, the individual harnesses the large amount of energy associated with being overcome by the pain of living and utilizes such energy to fashion creative works of beauty.

"Through stylistic and artistic gifts can the very pain of living at times be corrected into valuable experiences. Positive impulses engage the evil and put it to their own ends."

– attributed to Peter Wesel Zapffe in Academy of Ideas:Kierkegaard and Zapffe: Beauty, Suffering, and the Nature of Genius

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Kierkegaard and Zapffe: Beauty, Suffering, and the Nature of Genius

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