Hi Seeker,

It is no surprise that the greatest artists and writers through history have struggled with their own psychological problems.

I have met some people who have believed that merely to be artistically creative is to have a psychological problem by definition!

IMHO OCD is a horrible illness, and it can ruin lives. Sometimes a person can rise above this kind of suffering, and use it as an inspiration to create and communicate to others, and sometimes they can't. It depends on the person.

At bottom, I believe that suffering is a raw material for creativity, and so I would say that OCD can inspire creativity, but it can also reduce someone to an isolated, silenced individual. OCD is a hard test.

Maybe we should ask the question, would we rather suffer and be creative, or be happy in ignorance, and just slob out in front of the TV? That's an interesting one. I think that I would choose to suffer and be creative, maybe because suffering is what I know; I'm familiar with it.

Cheers, M