According to this article, research concludes that there is a link between creativity and mental illness. It’s an interesting prospect, like the notion that all genius is touched with madness, somehow. Though I don’t know whether a person like Albert Einstein would be an exception... he certainly seemed to be perfectly reasonable. However, his son developed mental illness and ended up committing suicide, so even there there might conceivably be considered the link to be present. I once defined genius that it is madness correlated to the common reality. But then I thought better of it, that such a definition was rather an adolescent one to make. I think there is some region of the mind where you need to let it loose a bit for the creativity to flow, but let the reigns go, and you are lost in yourself — that’s where the terror lies. James Joyce, when told his child was psychotic, said that some of the things his son said was like his own writing, whereupon the doctor replied that he was diving, while his son was drowning.
Reflection