tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post5259736171453259211..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: Creativity and Mental Illness, ContinuedJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-23135690056302291092014-08-17T23:11:51.829-04:002014-08-17T23:11:51.829-04:00Isn't madness merely the ability to seriously ...Isn't madness merely the ability to seriously believe in outcomes that experience dictates are impossible?<br /><br />For example, the notion that a person can fly unaided is madness - anyone who repeatedly jumps off their roof and honestly expects to take wing and soar through the sky, we all would agree is insane.<br /><br />But by the same token, in the world before powered flight became a reality, the notion that a person could fly <b><i>even with aid</i></b> seemed just as insane. All human experience throughout all of history suggested it was impossible. Many people had tried, and most of them came to bad ends in the process. People KNEW that the fastest speeds ever attainable by humans in all of recorded history were on horseback, or on a very swift ship with a strong wind, or aboard a steam locomotive. The thought of a human being traveling 50 miles per hour or more was insanity. And knowing this, they KNEW that no human could get a heavier-than-air machine to fly, because there was no way, even with steam technology, to provide sufficient power to such a device without making it too heavy to take out.<br /><br />But then Alberto Santos-Dumont pulled it off, publicly and verifiably, in his combustion powered "14-bis" biplane, and later astounded the world by circling over Paris in his "Demoiselle", well before the Wrights ever publicly flew their flyer.<br /><br />Before, he was considered by some to be quite mad. After, he was a triumphal hero celebrated around the world for having done what everyone had KNOWN was impossible.<br /><br />It's a strange balancing act, to be sure. Creativity and imagination can allow us to exceed the limitations of what experience tells us is possible, but in excess they can drive us to destruction and ruin. Finding the right measure of creativity, but grounding it in enough reason and practicality to not end in catastrophe, is a trick no one has truly mastered.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com