Psychology of Creativity. Light, Dusk and Dark Night of Soul. Monograph

It is always possible to differentiate the subject (a person), his thinking (the process) and the thought in everyday state of consciousness. A flow-like state is when the three are blended together.

3. Transcendence of Space

The transcendence of space implies indifference to the qualitative characteristics of space, their transformation or complete detachment from them (narrowing of the stimulus field of space perception).

The basic mechanism of this phenomenon can be described as transformation of the objective space of environment into the subjective world of personality. Creativity is stimulated rather by being open to the new, stereotype-breaking ideas, than by extensive encyclopedic knowledge. Creative solutions often come to mind in the moment of relaxation, non-focused attention, rather than in the moment of high concentration of attention (E.P. Torrance, 1995).

I would like to discuss the three following aspects of space transcendence:

1)Indifference to the physical characteristics of space. In the creative state of consciousness people cease to notice aesthetic characteristics (beautiful-ugly) and all the variables which do not concern creative activity: sounds and noises (people "stop hearing"), temperature (warm-cold), smells, flavors and even comfort become insignificant.

2)Transformation of the social characteristics of space. Sex, intellectual and aesthetic differences (man-woman, intelligent-stupid, beautiful-ugly) become insignificant. Social status and hierarchical position also lose their importance (supervisor-subordinate, rich-poor). People become field independent, i.e. not influenced by the attitudes and opinions of others.

“He rarely left his cell, did not go to the Trinity Hall to dine with other members of the college, except for the cases when his presence was obligatory. And then everybody could see his worn-out heels, drooping stockings, unfastened knee breeches, inappropriate clothing and dishevelled hair. He never took part in the conversations at the “High Table” and only answered when asked directly. When he was left alone, he sat at the table, indifferent to what was going around him, not trying to understand what his colleagues were talking about, paying no attention to food – plates were usually cleared before he had time to notice them and eat" (11).

There is another excellent description of creative state and strategy in A. Pushkin’s poem “To a

Poet”:

A poet! Do not prize the love of people around,

It soon will pass -- the glorifying hum --

And come a court of fools and laughing of cold crowd --

But you must always stay firm, morose and calm.

You're king: live lonesome. Along the freedom's road,

Stride there, to where just shows your free mind,

While modernizing fruits of thoughts, beloved,

And not demanding you to be awarded.

Awards inside of you. You are your highest court;

Severely then all, you value your effort.

Well, are you satisfied, oh, my severe artist?

You're satisfied. Then let the mob condemn your verse,

Spit at the altar, where your fire burns,

And toss your brass tripod with somewhat childish wildness.

Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, January, 2000

Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, August, 2000

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3) Narrowing of the stimulus field of space perception to the significant variables, which are necessary to ensure activity.

It is known that people are able to perceive and describe the characteristics of an object from the point of view of the object itself (for example, "the cold of space”), and from the point of view of the subject (i.e. their own point of view, for example, “a chill ran down my spine”). They can “transform” or “reincarnate” into an inanimate object, see it “from the inside”, enter into a “dialogue with objects”, explain their behavior from the point of view of their own human motives. In other words, human consciousness tends to animate, attribute soul to all the objects a person comes in contact with. This phenomenon is called anthropomorphisation.

Human characteristics, such as consciousness, thoughts, feelings and will, are attributed to animals and plants, inanimate objects and abstract notions. Thus, a violinist personifies his violin, a programmer gives soul to his computer, a carpenter animates his axe, a driver attributes human characteristics to his car. Medieval knights animated their sword, sailors personified their ships. Religious and philosophical schools tend to personify the world (pantheism, the “absolute idea”, the Universal Will, brahman, etc.).

The phenomenon of anthropomorphizing nature and man-made objects as human’s “communication partners” has its deep roots in human psyche. The ways of perceiving and manipulating the objects of the outer (and inner) world include the position of “communication partner”. They can be considered as transrational protophenomena of human consciousness that allow people to communicate with nature easily, without preparation.

A person performs the function of the transcendent subject. The truth is an open book for him, he acts without a hitch, "playing" from the score of nature. A lot has been written about this “initial state of consciousness” when personality loses its subjective character and dissolves in the spiritual cosmos (17).

4. Transpersonality

As a result of transcendence of the Ego, transpersonal (spiritual) phenomenology enters human consciousness. The person is being filled with divine inspiration: one experiences “a flow of thought”, he “sets hopes upon his consciousness”, ideas "fall from the skies”. Quite often an artist has a feeling of some “external force” controlling his creative thought. “A major character has to come somehow out of the unconscious”(G. Greene). “Somebody dictates, and I write it down” (A. Schnittke).

Anna Akhmatova in her poem from a series “Secrets of the Craft” described different kinds of poems. One is like "an anxious thunderbolt”, and:

Another, being born in midnight

Creeps up on me from I don’t know where.

Watches from the empty mirror

And mutters something stern

Creation takes place. It is not the man, not the personality that creates, creativity runs through him. This process has a sacramental and mystic character. The creator feels that he is undertaking a mission, that he is fulfilling what has been predestined for him, that he has found the meaning of life.

The Poet

Until the poet by Apollo

To sacred sacrifice is called,

In this world’s cares, so vain and hollow,

Нe is faint-heartedly enthralled.

His holy lyre’s hushed; songs – unwritten,

Cold sleep his soul tastes bitterly,

And ‘midst this world’s unhappy children,

Unhappiest, perhaps, is he.

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But once, divine, the word, the prize

So slightly nuzzles his keen ears,

The poet’s soul stirs up and rears,

Like an awakened eagle, cries...

Alexander Pushkin,

Translated by Julian Henry Lowenfeld

The flow-like state is closely connected with the experience of the function of transcendent subject, for whom the truth is an open book and everything in the world is clear. Stefan Zweig believed that the writer’s pen was always greater than the writer himself. And it is the God who decides, not the writer. If creation takes place, it is always inspired by God. The writer, his consciousness and his Ego are just instruments which help to reveal the truth. The Russian writer Mikhail Prishvin observes: love and creativity require transcending the limits of oneself in order to be able to love something greater than oneself.

Now let us again turn to the biography of Newton, who is unanimously considered to be the one whose insight into the secrets of nature was the most penetrating and profound of his time. It is believed that the last years of his life turned out to be a real tragedy. Isaak Newton, the one who had fought with groundless fantasies of natural philosophers, the one who had criticised unproved statements, who had trusted only experience and mathematics, suddenly began to speak about an invisible power which controlled the movement of celestial bodies, the power he could not clearly define! He proposed a theory that attributed a new, inexplicable, mysterious quality to nature.

Newton used the theological idea of the omnipresent God to vindicate action at a distance. As Descartes, he introduced the conception of God into science. In the last years of his life Newton wrote papers on the Book of Daniel and interpreted Apocalypse (12). Having strongly objected to the concept of action at a distance, he later started to attribute it to God.

The man who had established the reign of accurate experiment and uncompromising formulas in physics, devoted the last years of his life to the transcendent. His anguish over the finite and limited reality led him to theology and spiritual dimensions of being.

Many positivists think that it was the decline of one of the greatest minds. But it occurs to me that it was his rebirth: he turned his mind from the finite to the eternal, from the limited to freedom, from creatureliness to immortality.

The transpersonal character of creativity also lies in the fact that the creator problematizes something that is inaccessible to an ordinary person. Schopenhauer was right to say that a talent strikes the target that nobody can strike, and a genius strikes the target that nobody can see.

I am fully aware of the unscientific character of the terms that I use here. But it is important to remember that quite often creative experience is a mystical experience. One has to “deserve” being in a creative state, to “achieve" it, it “happens” with you.

“It was difficult to speak. I swallowed my words, they were indistinct, inappropriate. I remember that I felt grief and confusion. But inside there was the delight of insight, the ecstasy of knowledge, the thrill of feeling the presence of the sacred: as if in the bustle of a big city I suddenly saw a divine angel with silver wings.

And at the same time I realized:

-that I was very, very sick, that my head reeled; I had dry mouth, from time to time all around me began to fade, melt away. It took considerable effort to stay on my feet;

-that those who gathered in the room did not care about what I was saying. Perhaps my words were even harmful to many of them. I saw annoying, indifferent curiosity in their eyes: “What else will he say?...he hasn't got much to say..."

-that I desperately wanted to get rid of this condition. Of the words that were rushing through me. There was a feeling of talking under constraint, as if all that was against my will, mind and personality.

And I was also absolutely sure that I had no choice. In spite of everything, beyond all logic and common sense, I had to go through it, I had to say it, it was my fate” (13).

As I have already mentioned above, the flow-like state of consciousness is an ecstasy or an instasy which makes people get completely carried away. Motivation and emotions predominate over the rational and logical intellect. Spirituality also becomes extremely important.

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People create ideas, images, symbols and signs. But it is even more important that in the same creative process the ideas “create” people and influence their minds. The person who creates becomes “causa sui” (“cause of itself”). Personality creates itself and at the same time opens itself to others while it transcends personal space, abilities (knowledge, skills), self-representation in others and representation of others in itself.

The true meaning of flow-like states of consciousness lies not so much in the immersion into the infinity of the anthropocosmic in search of personal insight, as reaching the depth of the finite “Self” in order to find the inexhaustible and acquire the spiritual dimension of being.

Creative work leads to a deeper understanding of the world and oneself, to self-transformation and self improvement. That is why creative activity is a bliss.

Creative state of consciousness is connected with generating the new and the beautiful in the world and the creator himself, going beyond the limits of the known, improving one's knowledge, abilities, skills and getting transpersonal experience.

5. Impracticality

Impracticality of the creative states of consciousness is closely connected with their process-oriented character.

The practical efficiency of goals and results is not so valuable as the very process of creative work as well as the states of consciousness the creator experiences. Moreover, it is quite often that an artist loses all interest in the painting he has already finished, a writer – in the book he has already written, although they have put an incredible amount of time and energy in their work. The one who creates does not care about the impact his work will make on the life of society and on his own life. In my opinion, flow-like states of consciousness make people indifferent to the fruit of their work. The creative work itself is manna from heaven.

One cannot buy or sell the true creative work.

The one who creates will never agree to exchange his work for anything in the world. Creative work and creative states of consciousness is the highest reward a man can get. The one who has already been awarded knows it.

Creative activity gives people the feeling of deep satisfaction, which is gained from the process of work, and not from the result. Those who create forget their personal problems; they have a feeling of being competent and able to control the situation. They have a feeling of harmony with everything that surrounds them, of “self-expansion”, they develop their skills and abilities, their personality “grows”.

If these elements are present, people get pleasure from their activity and cease to worry about the opinion of others , they become field-independent and free.

It is naturally the best experience one can get.

It becomes possible to impose certain order on the stream of life, which is usually governed by chance. It gives the fundamental feeling of support, as one can focus his attention on the activity he has consciously chosen.

It also gives a powerful sense of mission and enables us to forget the destructive, the immediate, which has always been the dirty foam on the waves of our life. Flow-like states of consciousness enable us to create ourselves; not only to self-educate (to develop skills and abilities, to acquire new knowledge) but also to form our own world, to create our own vision, understanding of the world, to decide where to go, what to think, with whom to interact and communicate.

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Chapter 5

Dark Side of Creativity

Dusk and Night of Soul

“...And to him was given the key of the bottomless pit”.

The Revelation of St. John the Divine, 9:1

I killed the mosquito which had been beating its wings against the glass pane for a long time. Sunny morning, there is a thick smell of spring coming through the window. The mosquito forgot that its food, filled with fresh morning blood, was sitting just next to him; it could have sat quietly in the warm stuffy room, sucking the juices of my big body from time to time; instead, it yearned for light and scope...

It reminded me of a person who had lost creative flow and was longing for it.

1. Longing for Creativity

The tragedy of creativity lies in the destructive power of emotions provoked by the loss of ability to

create.

Such a loss results in very strong and long-lasting emotions.

When their intensity is fierce, which is similar to a state of shock, death or madness becomes possible. In any case, it ends in anguish.

The loss of ability to create disrupts the normal course of life, breaks the usual state of balance between the creator and his environment, and prevents him from living in harmony with himself. The loss of creativity is a traumatic event that can be an external attack, as well as an internal one, which causes everincreasing tension. The loss of ability to create can be the result of a single accident (for example, hearing loss among musicians) or of a series of failures (for example, artist’s paintings fail to achieve recognition).

Longing for creativity makes people get into a vulnerable psycho-emotional state, causing irritability and anxiety, intensifying tension and nervousness. They often feel a lack of something, but are not able to understand what it is exactly that they lack. It is vague, elusive and shapeless.

Gradually, everyday life begins to seem empty and artificial. One’s attitude to life changes dramatically. The old values are rejected while no new ones have not yet been formed. Everything that has been appreciated before loses its value. When a person loses creative flow, he or she starts looking for the source and meaning of life. At this stage people tend to misinterpret and misunderstand their condition. Misunderstanding the meaning of these new states, many people consider them to be a deviation from the norm and, being anxious about the possible loss of mental balance, they try to struggle with it. The state of worry and anxiety becomes more and more painful, and the feeling of inner emptiness becomes unbearable.

All that gave meaning to human’s life disappears, falls to the ground, while the new light has not yet been lit.

This condition is often accompanied by a moral crisis. The voice of conscience becomes more distinct; a new feeling of responsibility appears, accompanied by a feeling of guilt and pangs of remorse.

The futile efforts to overcome this crisis and reach creative flow usually go through several stages:

1)At first people attempt to use their own familiar methods. It can be drinking a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette longer than usual, taking a walk in the forest or cleaning one’s desk. In general, every creative person has his own ritual, a sequence of actions, which helps him enter the creative flow.

2)When this does help and anxiety becomes more intense, reserve methods and strategies, that have not been used before, are mobilized. At this stage the activity, which is associated with creative energy, is “set aside”. People occupy themselves with something that is not at all connected with their creative search (sorting out papers, visiting friends, going to the country). It looks as if they have made a successful attempt to distract themselves from work and temporarily renounced the idea of creating something. But inside they are preoccupied with their creative activity, namely their mind is focused on its absence. Worry, anxiety and anguish increase.

3)If the reserve strategies do not help to induce the creative state of flow, tension continues to grow. A seemingly insignificant detail (a word, a look, a closed door) may become “the last straw” and

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provoke a severe spiritual crisis, accompanied by personality disorganization and loss of ability to resist the upcoming tragedy.

The loss of ability to creative turns out to be a peculiar spiritual crisis for those who have already become familiar with the wonderful taste of creativity. It presents threat to the fundamental existential needs, individual autonomy and well-being. The feeling of anguish is accompanied by the feeling of losing oneself, losing one’s key attributes, abilities, the possibility to reach self-actualization and enjoy support. It is a question personality survival, personal growth and personal development.

Unfortunately, such crisis is rarely accepted as an invitation to spiritual development. Experience shows that personality often chooses other ways of dealing with it:

1. Ordinary Life

Creativity often becomes a heavy burden that does not let people enjoy the ordinary human life. Many creative personalities, like Wagner, who dreamt of a quiet family life far away from art, or Bulgakov, who was fascinated by the “eternal home...with the Venetian window and the twisting vine” (“Listen and enjoy what you were not given in life – peace”), yearned for normal, simple life. Akutagava dreamt of a little house on the southern side of the mount Taishan, where peach trees were in full bloom.

In some cases, people gradually recover from crisis: they do not make any attempts to get back to creative work and finally reach the state of equilibrium. They choose to live an ordinary life, "to live like everyone else”, admitting that they “have already done everything they could”, that “everything has already been written and said”, and thinking, “why do I have to torment myself, I’d better live like everybody else...”.

2. Death and Birth

The person rises to the challenge of spiritual crisis and decides to drain the cup to the dregs. He chooses the state of growing anxiety, worry, misunderstanding and “loss of oneself”. Consequently, depression, deprivation and grief become more severe. In the depth of despair, abandoned by God and by the truth, surrending to the absurdity of existence, he endures his pain and howling in the horror of night at the cemetery of hopes.

He has to endure and overcome the “deafness” of other people, of his fate and the sky.

And then hope springs up and fresh energy appears.

These throes of death and loneliness give birth to a demiurge, a person with a strong mind, able to create and maintain a high level of creative potential to his last breath.

3. Insanity

Pathology of consciousness is very likely to develop when a person is not able to cope with the intensity of emotions that overwhelm him.

It is known that the line between creativity and insanity is extremely fine. The strong connection between them is an undeniable fact: mental disorders are more common among talented people than among the general population.

Going beyond the permitted, beyond the ordinary, people often face the prohibitive mechanisms of culture. The unusual is often perceived as crazy. In order to progress, a creator has to go through rejection and denial, overcoming the fear of going insane.

The fear of going crazy, like the fear of death, is the innermost fear of every person. It is impossible to progress if you do not fight against these two enemies. The secret of insanity keeps the secret of creativity. And only by taking away the secret of creativity from the the secret of insanity can we become free.

There exists cultural ethics and politics of experience. Some experience is allowed while other is prohibited. There are certain norms of experiences, in terms of their concept, content, intensity and duration. There are stereotypes that we defend and follow. A step to creativity is often connected with rejecting these stereotypes and gaining tabooed experiences.

A lot of prominent writers and scientists can serve us as an example: Descartes, Pascal, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Plato, Kant, Kafka, Emerson, Nietzsche, Gilderlina, Čiurlionis, Khlebnikov and many others suffered from schizoid personality bordering on schizophrenia.

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Another mental disorder frequently observed among artists is manic-depressive psychosis, also known as bipolar disorder. It is defined by the alteration of depressive and manic episodes. This disease is closely connected with the emotional sphere, which plays a greater role in art than in science.

Depression, especially a deep one, deprives people from the ability to create and leads to emotional and intellectual poverty. However, it is not always so: many brilliant works of art were created at the very depth of depression.

Sometimes depression becomes milder. These periods of calm, or hypomania, may open doors to inspiration, destroying the old barriers and opening new horizons. The inner change makes creative people acquire a peculiar vision, an original understanding of the world. This dissent is unhealthy by nature but enormously fruitful.

The life of N. Gogol can serve us as an example. His mood was often unstable. Episodes of despair and inexplicable anguish alternated with cheerfulness. The majority of doctors diagnosed him as hypochondriac. However, it did not prevent him from creating masterpieces.

F. Dostoevsky, V. Garshin, V. Van Gogh, A. Strindberg, Salvador Dali, R. Schumann and many others suffered from mental disorders.

N. Nekrasov, A. Fet, I. Goncharov, L. Tolstoy, M. Gorky showed symptoms of mental deseases at different stages of their life.

Much has been written about the great Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, but his vulnerability, nervous breakdowns and tendency to neurotic reactions are rarely mentioned. He often lost his temper, cried and got hysterical.

Everything written by Mayakovsky is identified with his personality. He wrote: “I will marry my insanity” (from his poem “Vladimir Mayakovsky). “Long live my insanity”, “My anguish grows delirious and becomes incoherent ravings about a daemon” (from his poem “Man”). We can state with certainty that Mayakovsky had psychopathic traits of character, which resulted in his social inadequacy, emotional instability and tendency to neurotic breakdowns.

Russian psychiatric literature often discusses the psychopathy of A. Pushkin: the wild temper of his ancestors, some of whom were not mentally healthy, became milder in later generations, and Pushkin inherited only marked personality disorders and a striking disharmony in character.

N. Nekrasov, another famous Russian poet, had cyclothymia – a milder form of manic-depressive psychosis. It explained the notorious Nekrasov’s “spleen”. His complaints – anguish, anxiety, bad temper, somatic problems - indicated the depressive episode. From time to time, the energetic, enterprising person turned into a “half-dead body”. His common-law wife, A. Panaeva, complained in her memoirs: “You should have seen him, lying in his study for two days in deep depression, telling me over and over again about his nervous tension, about his being sick of everything, and above all, his being sick of himself".

Nekrasov’s letters abound in mental and physical complaints. “From time to time I cast a glance at the hooks on the ceiling...”, he once wrote to I. Turgenev.

These states made him imprudent: once he almost plunged into the Volga river; he yearned to fight in the war in Sebastopol; he accepted challenges to fight a duel with delight and always insisted on severe rules which made fatal outcome extremely probable.

The three greatest military leaders of the past, Alexander of Macedon, Gaius Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte, suffered from epilepsy. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Petrarch, Moliere, and Flaubert were also epileptic.

When Newton started his political career (he became a member of the Whig party), he suffered from deep anxiety: he had problems with sleep, his work did not go smoothly, he feared somebody wanted to kill him, to ransack his laboratory, to steal his work. He suggested various reasons: envy, jealousy, revenge, religious fanaticism, political interest. He could not name the exact one, but he was sure of being followed...

Sometimes it seemd to him that he was going mad (11). However, he was not the only one.

Akutagawa feared going crazy, like his mother did in her time. He wrote that his unconsciousness,

“the Africa of his spirit”, stretched endlessly, and he was afraid of it, as its darkness was full of monsters that did not exist in the real world.

Another disorder which may affect those who create is when people lose connection with their ego and with the time and space characteristics of the outer reality. Its extreme form is emotional dullness and autism.

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Hallucinatory substitution of reality is also possible. It may seem to a person that he has become the God who is creating the world, or that he composes magnificent poems, or makes significant scientific discoveries, or writes remarkable books (and in comparison with his literary masterpieces the wisdom of the Book of Ecclesiastes becomes nonsense), or creates a new philosophy of life...

Hallucinations may also have paranoid character, that is when people believe that “there are enemies who interfere with their work”, or "there is a conspiracy against them", or that “somebody has put an evil curse on them”...

There are few basic reactions to the loss of creativity:

-Impairments of social interaction. Gogol's behavior before his death is a classic example of this phenomenon. The writer changed his attitude to life and values. He secluded himself from society, lost interest in his relatives and friends and turned to religion. His faith became excessive, sometimes even frantic, filled with blatant mysticism. His fits of "religious insight" altered with episodes of fear and despair. This encouraged him to lead a life of asceticism. One of his ascetic labors, emaciation, resulted in death. Thoughts about his sinful life haunted the writer. He became fully absorbed in seeking salvation. He believed that he had a gift for preaching. He began to teach. He was sure that the meaning of his life lied not in his creative work but in his moral quest.

-Escaping into a “different” creative reality.

-Fighting against hallucinatory “enemies” in delirium.

For example, the main character of Akutagawa’s autobiographical novel “Cogwheels” opens “Crime and Punishment” and gets startled: “But before I had finished even one page I began to feel my body trembling. It was a passage of Ivan’s being tormented by the Devil’s Inquisition. Ivan, Strindberg, de Maupassant, myself, in this room...”. In Yesenin’s poem “The Black Man” the main hero embodies the sickness of the world, the evil, dark and false side of man, he is also the “shadow” of the poet himself, a scoundrel, a degraded drunkard, a shadow which now lives independently from him:

The black man, The black, black, Black man

Sits by me on the bed all night, Won't let me sleep.

...

And again the black

Man is sitting in my chair, He lifts his top hat

And, casual, takes off his cape.

And then Yesenin feels a strong desire to destroy the “most odious guest”:

I'm enraged, possessed,

And my cane flies

Straight across

The bridge of his nose.

Creative people often live on the border between mental health and illness, and it is in this gap between the two realities that they discover new abilities and opportunities which contribute to realization of their brilliant potential. It is on the verge of insanity that creative energy becomes wildly active.

Creativity is always connected with invocation of chaos, and whether we like it or not, with mental disorders. We have to admit that the road to the truth and the road to madness intersect in the most unexpected way and in the most unexpected place.

4. Self-immolation

In response to the loss of ability to create people sometimes develop self-aggressive behavior. It usually happens when they lose the meaning of their life. Men are more likely to respond in such a way than women. The life of N. Gogol shows that a person is able to bring oneself to utter exhaustion and death: he

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did not receive anyone, prayed a lot, hardly ate anything and spent the last two days of his life kneeling in front of an icon without food and water.

The feeling of loneliness, alienation, apathy, loss of belief in one's future, decrease of creative and vital activity as a result of the loss of flow-like states of consciousness lead to searching for destructive surrogate experience. The surrogate experience of the “burst of creative energy” is closely connected with altered states of consciousness, which are now induced by alcohol, drugs, gambling and participation in totalitarian sects.

Such substitution is easily justified, as it leads to the states characterized by the transcendence of time, space and ego, to fervent transpersonal experience, non-practical in its nature.

As a rule, “self-immolation” is a lengthy process, an act of self-destruction, an ego sacrifice. Our history is full examples of creative people dying from alcoholism.

According to A. Mariengof, during the last months of his tragic life, S. Yesenin could be called a human not more than an hour a day. He emptied his first glass in the morning and could not stop all day long.

Alcoholism killed Vladimir Vysotsky, a famous Russian singer, songwriter, poet and actor. Three months before his death he made the last attempt to combat his addiction. Leonid Sulpovar, a doctor of the N.V.Sklifosovsky Emergency Medicine Research Institute, told him about hemosorption (cleansing of blood): “In a week you’ll be as fresh as a daisy! Complete recovery!” – “Great! I am ready!” The operation was terribly painful, but it did not help Vysotsky recover.

Thousands of poets and writers, artists and scientists, sportsmen, singers, political leaders and businessmen suffered from alcoholism.

If we analyze the effects of alcohol, drugs, gambling and smoking, we will find out that they are characterized by the states similar to flow-like states of consciousness, which accompany creative inspiration.

Dostoevsky, Mayakovsky, Pushkin, and many other celebrities also suffered from gambling addiction.

Mayakovsky was not indifferent to the huge amounts of money he usually lost gambling when he went abroad on a mission. He certainly suffered from the fact that he had lost a lot of money, but he never made any conclusions, never blamed himself, never felt guilty. He was a venturesome person. He was a gambler. He was a fierce, implacable gambler.

“It was terrifying to play cards with Mayakovsky”, wrote the poet N. Aseev.

Losing for him was not a natural result of the game, as probable as winning. He always took losses for personal tragedy.

Pushkin imagined himself to be a great expert in card games. He was even on the list of gamblers compiled by local police marked as a “well-known Moscow banker”. However, professional card players easily took him to the cleaners.

5. Suicide

Death is a quick and efficient way to solve creative crisis, when one feels no stimulus to create left in his soul...

It was proved by the artists, who, both according to the official theory and in reality, died by their own hand.

The theme of suicide runs through Mayakovky’s work: "My heart is craving for a shot, my throat raves about a razor...”. His suicidal thoughts were caused by loneliness and anxiety at his being useless. A line from the poem “About It”:

-In my childhood, perhaps at the very bottom of it, will I find ten fairly good days...

And from the poem “Me”:

-I am lonely like the only eye of a person who walks towards blind people...

From the poem “The Backbone Flute”:

- The anguish that makes me think of running to the canal and putting my head into the water's bared

teeth...

He had made several attempts to shoot himself before that fatal April day of 1930, when he finally reached his goal.

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The former Secretary-General of the USSR Union of Writers, the author of the novels “The Young Guard” and “Defeat”, Alexader Fadeyev, also shoot himself. His obituary read: “Fadeyev had been suffering from alcoholism for many years...In a state of deep depression, caused by another drinking bout, Fadeyev committed suicide".

- I do not see the point in consciously multiplying...sufferings, - wrote the famous Russian poet Afanasy Fet in his suicide note, - I voluntarily meet the inevitable.

The theme of suicide runs through the work of S. Yesenin. It seems to be a logic and carefully thought-over way to end his life. As early as in 1916 he exclaimed: “I"ll hang myself upon my sleeve, on a green evening it will happen...” (“I"m tired of living in my land...”) On the 27th of December in 1925 there was either a dinner, or a New Year party in Yesenin’s room.

Guests were few: the Russian and Soviet poet V. Ehrlich, the journalist Ustinov with his wife and a few casual acquaintances.

Saying goodbye to Ehrlich, Yesenin gave him a sheet with a poem. He asked to read it later. The blood-written farewell lines read: “Good bye, my friend, good bye...”

On December 28th in 1925 in room 5 of the hotel “Angleterre” Sergei Yesenin was found dead.

The numerous duels of Alexander Pushkin can also be interpreted as suicidal attempts. He challenged his uncle, colonel Hannibal, his childhood friend Küchelbecker, then Modest Korf, who tried to calm his drunken butler, then some major Denisevich: Pushkin used to enter the theater hall after the beginning of the play and tapped spectators' feet regardless of their social status, which was not to the solemn major’s liking. Then colonel Starov, because of mazurka. Then count Sologub, because of misunderstanding. Then prince Repin, for the same reason. And many, many others. All his duels, except for the last one, were groundless.

Suicide can be a perfectly conscious outcome of the creative crisis. An extract from Akutagawa’s “Letter to a Certain Old Friend” can serve us as an example:

“Once deciding on suicide (I do not regard it as a sin, as Westerners do), I worked out the least painful means of carrying it out. Thus I precluded hanging, shooting, leaping, and other manners of suicide for aesthetic and practical reasons. Use of a drug seemed to be perhaps the most satisfactory way. As for place, it had to be my own house, whatever inconvenience to my surviving family. As a sort of springboard I, as Kleist and Racine had done, thought of some company, for instance, a lover or friend, but, having soon grown confident of myself, I decided to go ahead alone. And the last thing I had to weigh was to insure perfect execution without the knowledge of my family. After several months' preparation I have at last become certain of its possibility”.

The pessimistic vision of one’s future, hopelessness, the feeling of futility and uselessness, of being rejected and abandoned, lead to suicide. The death poem of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa is an apt description of the futility of human life devoid of creative work:

A spring branch is trembling

A moment ago

A monkey fell from it.

The disability to create leaves a huge gap in the structure of ego, which may end in suicide. Suicidal crisis is caused by the impossibility to overcome obstacles on the way to achieving one’s primary goal (the creative state of mind), using methods formed by previous personal experience.

The crisis of creativity is an acute emotional state characterized by tension, anxiety, cognitive and behavior disorders. It implies strong negative emotions, the feeling of uncertainty, nervousness, possible disorganization, fixation on the absurdity of life without creative work, the feeling of failure, helplessness, loneliness, pessimistic vision of one's own personality, life and future, difficulties in planning activities. People lose energy and vitality. The crisis of creativity leads to communication problems and weakening of interpersonal ties.

It is the highest level of disintegration of personality that provokes suicidal thoughts which may lead to death.

The absurdity of existence without creativity invokes the destructive and all-devouring power of Thanatos, the God of death. A creator is not afraid of death, he is afraid of creaturily life. He sees death as a deliberate choice or unconscious desire for spiritual rebirth.

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