The Tortured Genius: Myth or Reality

“THERE IS NO GREAT GENIUS WITHOUT SOME TOUCH OF MADNESS”

–ARISTOTLE

A recent long read feature on Bill Watterson dealt with why he vanished suddenly from the scene, at the peak of his creative prowess. For the uninitiated, Bill Watterson is the God behind the famous cartoon strip, Calvin & Hobbes. December 31, 1995 was the last cartoon strip he ever drew of Calvin and Hobbes. In fact that was the last time he ever picked up his sketching tools to sketch anything. (The good news is He is back. The bad news is that Calvin and Hobbes are not. He is releasing a modern fable titled The Mysteries, in which the caricaturist John Kascht is illustrating, not Watterson!)

The last strip of Calvin and Hobbes, December 31, 1995. It is so full of positivity that one would never know how tormented its creator was by this time.

It’s been almost 30 years since Watterson walked away. He walked away, as the article says, ‘because he was exhausted’, ‘he was done with public life’. It comes across that putting out the cartoon strip on a daily basis for 10 years had become his life. Everything else was secondary for him – even the decision to raise a family. He acquired the reputation of a tortured genius. Which got me thinking about the term ‘tortured genius’.

It is a conundrum that has puzzled mankind since at least Plato and Aristotle.

Why do so many creative people throughout history — so many great artists and geniuses — seem to be touched by what the ancient Greek thinkers called "divine madness"?

And which came first for those graced by this "gift from the gods" — the genius or the madness?

Reading up on this term threw up a whole bunch of names across some obvious vocations like painters and musicians, to not so obvious ones like actors, writers, stand-up comedians, and even scientists.

Row 1 (L to R): Robin Williams, Kurt Cobain, John Nash, Diego Maradona, Alan Turing; Row 2 (L to R): Bill Watterson, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, Richard Pryor, Guru Dutt; Row 3 (L to R): J. Robert Oppenheimer, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jimi Hendrix, Harper Lee, Vincent Van Gogh

Most tortured geniuses come across as the girl/guy next door. It’s what they do, not how they look, that sets them apart. And it is precisely the fact that they don’t otherwise stand out, or rather stick out, from the rest that makes it that much more difficult to assess what exactly goes on through their minds. If there is one thing that is common across all tortured geniuses, it is that they are all extremely creative in what they do. By creative I do not only mean the fine arts or performing arts. I mean creative in the broadest sense of the word wherein the creativity in what they do is about being able to see or realise something that mere mortals don’t. And it doesn’t just end at realisation. Geniuses take it further by coming up with a creation that sets new boundaries for others to have as goals. They push the envelope in creating new ways that make the members of their community realise their own shortcomings.

The flip side to this pioneering quality is that tortured geniuses all come up with ideas whose time hasn’t yet come. They set new benchmarks by creating new paradigms. In the case of a cult classic like Kaagaz Ke Phool, it was such a disaster at the box office that Guru Dutt swore to give up direction. Legend goes that Raj Kapoor who predicted the film’s cult status told Dutt, “Don’t worry, you have made the film 15 years too early.” Prophetic words from someone who was told the same thing when his own saga Mera Naam Joker suffered the same fate, sending him into a downward spiral.

It is precisely for the fact that the creations of tortured geniuses are ahead of their time, that they are able to stand the test of time.

But the price they pay is heavy. Vincent Van Gogh suffered from bouts of depression, mania, and penury while he went about churning out one masterpiece after another. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, though fairly well off, was troubled with a complex because of his looks and short stature. It led him to frequent the cabarets and brothels of Paris as those were the places where the ladies of the houses did not sit in judgment on him. It helped him thrive where he was accepted for who he was. It led to a period of intense creativity that not only saw some of the best paintings take shape through his brushes, but also made cabarets like Moulin Rouge so famous that they have now become must-do’s on every tourist’s list.

Another common trait that I came across is that most tortured geniuses thrive as solo performers. For them it is not about common or shared goals. It is about their vision. Like Arjun’s focus on the eye of the fish, so too is their unwavering focus and commitment towards achieving their vision. To achieve that vision they definitely need the help and support of teams and core team members. But let there be no doubt that it is they, and they alone, who lead. Jocko Willink in his book, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead And Win, gives a perspective on how tortured geniuses operate in a team environment – “No matter how obvious his or her failing, or how valid the criticism, a tortured genius, in this sense, accepts zero responsibility for mistakes, makes excuses, and blames everyone else for their failings (and those of their team). In their mind, the rest of the world just can’t see or appreciate the genius in what they are doing. An individual with a tortured genius mind-set can have catastrophic impact on a team’s performance.” This can be attributed to the fact that tortured geniuses come with an inherent superiority complex, a trait that is always at odds at something that needs to be done as a team towards a common goal. As solo performers they thrive in isolated environs that allow them the freedom to conduct themselves as they choose and wish.

Oftentimes it so happens that tortured geniuses who find success and fame within their lifetimes are not able to cope with it. Take the story of Richard Pryor, for instance. The son of a prostitute and a pimp, Pryor grew up in a brothel in the town of Peoria, Illinois, and later made wisecracks on stage about his bizarre upbringing. But he was a "game-changer" whose on-stage style would make him the most influential comedian of his generation, especially for black comics such as Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. He documented every pain, every abuse he'd ever suffered in his life, and he made it funny. The sad part about this story is that while making people laugh Pryor was one tormented soul who never came to terms with his own success. He never settled down in life as he always thought he was undeserving of the adulation. That he was short-changing who he truly was. Pryor started out in the 1960s and was all set for mainstream success until he realised one night on stage in Las Vegas that he was not being true to himself. Pryor dropped out for a couple of years and when he returned he introduced a sharper, more foul-mouthed style that was more "street". And though success and money came to him by the bucketloads, Pryor burnt it all up – literally – freebasing cocaine for days on end. Just to escape his own demons which tormented him as being a scam artist. Bonnie Fuller, editor of HollywoodLife.com, says celebrities and performers often differ in their public and private personas. "Comedians are kind of known for this, for being not necessarily funny when they're off stage," she says. "A lot of them are not particularly extroverted when they're not performing."

Or take the case of Maradona. As his career progressed, his income increased and so did the pressure to support a growing number of dependents. The teenager was already the head of the family and had relocated them to finer living quarters. Family was everything to him and that weight of responsibility made Maradona relentless in his pursuit of footballing greatness. But, he was suffering at some level, says psychologist Dr Pippa Grange in the documentary, What Killed Maradona?.

“By 1982, Maradona had started to ascend from exciting prospect to global superstar. As the pressure mounted, he coped by thinking of himself as two people. He kept Diego separate, as a place to retreat to. But, at that point, Diego had no inkling how big Maradona would become.”

Maradona’s former personal trainer, Fernando Signorini, says in the documentary: “He said one day, ‘I was kicked to the top of the mountain, but they left me alone and nobody explained to me how to survive.’” 

The thing about tortured geniuses is that probably somewhere deep down they realise that they are racing against time. And which is why you see a level of prolificity bordering on the extreme. Bill Watterson put out 3151 strips of Calvin and Hobbes in a span of 10 years. Van Gogh churned out, yes churned out is the term, 900 paintings and artworks at the rate of one new artwork every 36 hours! The Doors had 6 albums with 52 songs in a matter of just about 5 active years. Maradona gave us immense joy by scoring close to 500 national level and club level goals. Robin Williams made us laugh and cry through more than 60 films and innumerable stand-up comedy shows.

It's quite probable that tortured geniuses do not see success/fame/money/adulation as natural outcomes of their genius powers. A lot of the great artists probably didn’t set out to become great artists. They weren’t tortured souls, creating their art out of despair. They just liked messing around with words, images, melodies, ideas, and the by-product of that process, eventually, was a valuable creation.

It’s possible that they start out in the quest of purely excelling in their chosen field without the attached frills, and bells and whistles. But the demands of modern success demand a certain manner in which everyone is supposed to behave, certain things they are supposed to do. Tortured geniuses probably see success as a selling out of their souls. They realise that they need an outlet for the pent up genius residing in them. But are caught between a rock and a hard place when that genius is commercialised to such an extent that they start abhorring their own self. It's possibly one of the reasons that one finds extreme self-harm a common characteristic of all tortured geniuses. And the easiest way to inflict damage on to yourself, while also escaping from the demons that keep rising and ebbing in their brains is their extreme dependence on substance abuse.

It's an idea deeply embedded in our culture: the artist, musician, poet, novelist or comedian who excels in his or her field, but is tormented by inner demons. By this logic, the coexistence of creativity and mental illness is not a coincidence: The talent and the demons are thought to be inextricably linked. The torment is part of the gift.

It could be one of the reasons for the high suicide incidence one gets to see in the cases of tortured geniuses.

So is there a way out for tortured geniuses to overcome their demons? Or is there even any truth to the concept of a tortured genius? Like every controversial subject, the concept of a tortured genius too has two sides.

A leading researcher in this field, Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (who herself has bipolar disorder) whose studies seem to back up the popular idea of the "tortured genius." When, for example, she examined nearly 50 writers and artists in Britain, she found that more than 38% had been treated for a mood disorder. On the other hand, some experts find this discussion absurd, such as psychologist Judith Schlesinger, author of 2012's The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the Myth of the Mad Genius. She says, “There is no evidence ... that a poet or comedian is any more disturbed than the mail carrier," she says. "People (are) asserting creative people (are) more prone to mental illness without a shred of proof. But the myth is so beloved and so ancient that people figure it must be true and there must be evidence.”

Barry Panter, a retired psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who has written books about creativity and madness suggests at least some creatives become creative because of their disorders, even as a way to deal with them unconsciously. "When artists are dealing with unconscious emotional issues, that creates great pressure inside, and they use their art to deal with those issues," says Panter. "It's a way of externalising their pain, hoping to gain control and even mastery over it. Even if they desperately want to feel better, they don't want to give up what they believe is their inspiration.”

"They feel that their creativity comes from their darkness, their bottle — the pain is the muse," says Constance Scharff, director of addiction research at Cliffside Malibu, the celebrity rehab center in California that treats patients with addiction and psychiatric issues. "But we don't see that played out. Robert Downey Jr. is more successful in recovery than when he was still using. If you can convince them, which we couldn't with (for example) Hemingway, that there is a way out, they can do well." Moreover, there are success stories in treating suicidal or depressed creative people, at least these days. J.K. Rowling struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts but, as a single mom, knew she had to get help. It worked, and the author of the Harry Potter novels is now the richest woman in Britain.

Nancy Andreasen, author of The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius, says, "People who are highly creative are intrinsically curious, exploratory, risk-taking, adventurous, and they're also persistent and somewhat rebellious or unconventional," she said. "When you have all of those traits, it makes you more vulnerable to rejection ... There's an underlying fundamental way of approaching life and the world that leads to both creativity and vulnerability to mental illness. But things like innate resilience and social support are what help these curious, adventurous, exploratory people not develop mental illness." Not every tortured genius, though, has this resilience.

There have been creative thinkers who spoke about mental illness giving them their edge. "My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness," the artist Edvard Munch, thought to have had bipolar disorder, once wrote, according to Smithsonian magazine. "Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder ... My sufferings are a part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art." Not every tortured genius, however, has this high level of consciousness or self-awareness.

Even Van Gogh who is known as much for his masterpieces as for his own ear that he famously cut off, had a moment of epiphany when he wrote in a letter to his brother, Theo, “In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.” This letter was dated September 24, 1880. Van Gogh didn’t let go of his pencil for just short of ten years, when he shot himself. Such a pity he just didn’t have it in him anymore to write another letter to Theo.

If only all tortured geniuses had this level of clarity about their own selves!

What Nancy Andreasen also found in her extensive study wasn’t confirmation for the “tortured genius” myth — the idea that a great artist must have some dark, tragic pathology in order to create — but quite the opposite: these women and men had become successful writers not because of their tortuous mental health but despite it. Or as Hemingway succinctly put it,

"They think, 'If I stop drinking I won't be able to write,' "

It emerges that there is no scientific or formal way in which the torments and demons of the tortured genius can be eliminated. “The trope of the tormented artist is so widespread that for some people, it's almost something to be taken for granted. "As an artist in an artsy community, in some ways it seems intuitive that there is that correlation," said Ellen Forney, an artist who detailed her diagnosis with bipolar disorder in the graphic memoir Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me. Maybe, she hypothesized, “artists can be more outspoken about mental illness than is accepted in other professions, or maybe mental illness somehow gives an advantage to people who work in creative fields.”

A good support system that nurtures the genius without letting it slip into self-harm is essential. By Watterson’s own admission, he cannot accurately recall a whole decade of his life because of his “Ahab-like obsession” with his work. “The intensity of pushing the writing and drawing as far as my skills allowed was the whole point of doing it,” he says. “I eliminated pretty much everything from my life that wasn’t the strip.” While Watterson’s wife, Melissa Richmond, organized everything around him, he furthered his isolation, burrowing ever more deeply into the strip’s world. There was no other way, he believed, to keep its integrity absolute. “My approach was probably too crazy to sustain for a lifetime,” he says, “but it let me draw the exact strip I wanted while it lasted.”

I am not professing any expertise in this area, but the more I read about the subject the more I realised that geniuses need interventions at the right time to give them the right perspective. Dev Anand said that Guru Dutt “suffered from melancholia.” And that the renowned filmmaker couldn’t look at life beyond success and failure by philosophising, “What’s life about, friend? It’s only about two things – success and failure. There’s nothing in between.” If only someone had given Dutt a perspective that there is a lot in between success and failure, and that life is never so binary.

“Work and home were so intermingled that I had no refuge from the strip when I needed a break,” Watterson recalls. “Day or night, the work was always right there, and the book-publishing schedule was as relentless as the newspaper deadlines. Having certain perfectionist and maniacal tendencies, I was consumed by Calvin and Hobbes.” Fortunately for Watterson, and for us, he had a highly supportive, involved and understanding wife in Melissa Richmond to help him manage the chaos in his life. And he was able to take the call to stop the cartoon strip before descending into an abyss.

To put it simply, it has to come from within. Easier said than done.

Be braver. Be kinder.

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For Keep Watching there is a bonanza of reviews this time: two on excellent documentaries directed by Asia Kapadia - one on Maradona, and one on Amy Winehouse - and a fabulous concert by one of the greatest stand up comedians, Richard Pryor. While ‘Diego Maradona’ and ‘Amy’ do touch upon the theme of today’s post, the Richard Pryor concert doesn’t give even a hint of how disturbed the stand-up comic was.

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A 2 hour documentary that tracks Maradona’s journey from rags to riches, from innocent mama’s boy to a ladies man, from once-in-a-lifetime football talent to a caricature, and how Diego was different from Maradona and how he increasingly became conflicted and went downhill trying to live up to being Maradona. Must have been something to be carrying the weight of a huge family from age 15, to bringing a city prosperity and confidence through playing football and to live up to the expectations of an entire country! Asif Kapadia sure knows how to make excellent bio-docu’s.

Diego Maradona | Documentary | Netflix

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Asif Kapadia (Diego Maradona, Senna) does yet another brilliant depiction of the brief life and times of Amy Winehouse - a once in a generation singing talent. You will get sucked into the travails of the singer, feel for her vulnerability, feel sorry that such a phenomenon couldn’t stop herself from her path of self destruction in alcohol and drugs. The last quote by Tony Bennett (a musical legend in his own right) will give the chills -“If she had lived, I would have said:. slow down; you're too important... Life teaches you, really how to live it... if you could live long enough...”. Touching if you know her music, touching even if you don’t.

Amy | Documentary | Netflix

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Ask any stand up comic worth his/her salt as to who is the one stand up guy they look up to and the unanimous answer would be “Richard Pryor”. And when you watch him live in concert you realise how damn good the man is and why he’s revered so much. Irreverent and politically incorrect to a point where in today’s times he could be arrested, he’s just such a treat to watch as an unbridled talent who is fully worthy of the adulation he gets from those who hopeto emulate him. It’s an hour and twenty minutes of laughs, a major part of which you’ll find yourself laughing out real loud and clutching your sides.

Richard Pryor: Live In Concert | Netflix