Talent is rare, genius is unique. It is widely believed that every child is talented if his abilities are developed in the right direction. And, of course, it is important from the very beginning to convey and strengthen in the child's mind the understanding that abilities are just a bonus, and only painstaking and continuous work can bring success.
Genius has a different nature. More than once there was a recognition of genius people that they felt themselves to be guides, translators of a certain higher thought, a "divine idea" and were, in a sense, hostages of their gift, having neither the strength nor the right to give up their mission. passionarity”, by which he proposed to understand an impulse of extraterrestrial origin, but not divine, but cosmic. He explained that an excess of cosmic energy causes tremors, as a result of which solar radiation, reaching the earth's surface, causes mutations. He called these mutations passionarity.
Passionarity affects the development of character traits in an unpredictable manner. A person can become a genius, but with the same degree of probability and a criminal. The main feature of a passionary is the dedication of oneself, one's whole life to a specific goal.
According to N. A. Berdyaev, a man of genius lives his life as a hostage of his talent, performing a sacrificial feat. In life, you can rarely meet a truly gifted person who would not have to pay dearly for his unusual abilities, his "spark of God."
Nobel laureate Louis Bergson associated genius with intuition, which is given as a divine gift to individuals, and considered genius to be an incomprehensible mysterious force that exists outside of consciousness. Perhaps, it is in genius creativity that the godlike essence of man is manifested?
Most psychiatrists state as a fact the connection between genius and psychopathological disorders. Stendhal believed that the histories of their diseases are part of the biography of geniuses.
However, there is also an opposite point of view, the supporters of which argue that genius is precisely the biological norm, which is laid down by nature or is a divine plan, but is not used due to unfavorable conditions of development. And illness, if any, is not a cause, but a consequence of the creativity of a genius, a consequence of nervous overstrain due to improper distribution of efforts or unfavorable life circumstances. In fact, from this point of view, illness is an accident, a side circumstance, even an accident, from which no one is immune.
Based on the data cited by various researchers of biographies, creativity and case histories of prominent figures in science and art, it is easy to conclude that in rare cases, mental illness can be the result of intense creative activity, life difficulties, non-recognition, but often it is a cause, a motive. for such an activity.
A few examples to illustrate
German composer, whose work is recognized as one of the peaks in the history of world art. The father is an alcoholic, mentally limited, cruel, encouraging his son to engage in beatings. The mother was sick with tuberculosis. The family was in dire financial need. The composer himself was absent-minded and impractical, prone to severe depression. He was prone to quarrels and conflicts, uncontrollable bouts of rage and violence. At the age of 26, deafness began its destructive work. According to the testimony of friends, Beethoven howled like a beast while working and rushed about the room, reminiscent of a violent madman. Many of Beethoven's works are addressed to women and are the fruit of his passionate but unrequited love.
Russian poet. His grandfather died in a psychiatric hospital, and his father, a brilliant lawyer and musician, was a clinical sadist, beat his wife, kept her half-starved. Died unkempt lonely mentally ill. The mother suffered from a nervous breakdown, excruciating states of melancholy, anxiety, she had seizures of epilepsy. She made an attempt on her life three times. The face of the poet himself amazed everyone by the lack of facial expressions. He was subject to frequent and intermittent mood swings - from childish fun to outbursts of irritation with smashing dishes and furniture. From the age of 16, seizures of epilepsy began. In family life, Blok tried to implement the ideas of V. Solovyov about superhuman love, denying sexual relations in the name of "white love". Over the years, marriage turned into a series of mutual betrayal and turned into a difficult conflict. Blok's illness began to progress after the poem "The Twelve", when he was disillusioned with the ideals of the revolution. The poet died in a psychotic crisis.
Great Russian writer. The weakness of NV Gogol's organism can be explained by his father's tuberculosis. The writer himself believed that his father died not from illness, but from fear of illness. Nikolai Vasilyevich received this fear from his father as a fatal inheritance. The writer was born from a too young mother: Maria Ivanovna got married at the age of 14. Gogol's school friends directly considered her abnormal. Considering her son a genius, but not realizing that writing can be a worthy pursuit, she attributed to him the invention of the steam engine, the railway, etc.
Since childhood, the writer himself was painfully shy, slovenly, withdrawn and silent. At 22, his morbid state takes the form of exaltation and, not having enough education for this, Gogol gets a job giving lectures at the university. Very soon it became clear to the students that their "professor" did not understand anything about history, besides, he was not able to be modest and amiable. Without waiting for student demonstrations, Gogol was fired. Since then, the writer's mental illness has been cyclical. Periods of manic rise alternated with months-long bouts of depression with loss of working capacity, with hypochondriacal delusional ideas.
In his entire life, Gogol had no connections with women, he did not know what love is and it takes little place in his works. Gogol himself understood and wrote that his illness had a huge impact on his work. He describes a serious mental illness or close conditions in "Terrible revenge", in "Diary of a Madman", in "Nose", in "Overcoat", in "Vie" and other works. The writer died during an attack of prolonged melancholy from exhaustion and anemia of the brain associated with starvation and improper treatment, especially bloodletting.
French emperor, military leader. His father was an alcoholic, a man with a pathological psyche, devoid of moral feelings. Napoleon himself was a sickly child, subject to outbursts of anger that reached the point of rage. He was prone to quarrels and fights, was not afraid of anyone, everyone was afraid of him. From childhood, he began having seizures caused by rickets. Even at two years old, he could not hold his head straight, which was more than normal. He possessed an absolute memory, easily memorized both mathematical formulas, and poems, and the names of soldiers and officers, indicating the year and month of joint service, as well as the unit and name of the regiment in which a colleague was. From his youth he got up no later than four in the morning, taught himself to sleep a little.
The main remarkable feature of his intelligence was the ability to react instantly to external events. He had sudden bouts of sleepiness when he fell asleep in the midst of a battle. The pathological orientation of the personality is evidenced by a homosexual relationship with his brother Joseph and an incestuous relationship with sister Paulina. Most historians agree that Napoleon would never have achieved such success if he were even a little more normal. His enthusiasm was abnormal and it was he who brought him success.
Russian poet, prose writer. Marina Tsvetaeva's sister, Anastasia, recalled that in her exorbitant pride, Marina easily and ardently did evil. She studied poorly and indifferently, insulted teachers, talking to them arrogantly and disrespectfully. At 17, she tried to commit suicide. With people it was very difficult for her, with those close to her, she was like from another planet: emotionally cold towards her father (Ivan Tsvetaev - the founder of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts on Volkhonka), a bad mother to all three of her children, an unfaithful wife to her husband.
She ruined children with frenzied, overwhelming love, wanting to recreate them with her influence, or with indifference, unable to solve everyday issues (Irina died of hunger in 1918 in Moscow). She wrote endless love letters addressed to different people, not stopping either at lesbian connections or at other moral deviations. Almost always the unchanging state of Tsvetaeva was melancholy and an attitude against the whole world, which was perceived as something alien and hostile. For her, it was not like that, she created dramas herself. The state of peace and happiness took away her inspiration. She considered unhappiness to be a necessary component of creativity, she called her poems "heart-rattling".
According to psychiatrists, the death drive was for her one of the subconscious sources of creativity. Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide in 1941 after another conflict with her son, which, apparently, was a provocative factor against the background of general trouble.
These are just a few examples. The list of genius people who showed their outstanding talent to the world and paid a high price for it is so large that it will not fit into the format of an article, volumes are needed for this …
