I posted this message on the schizoaffective forum, because that is my disorder, but you bipolar people have the reputation for being smart and creative, so I'll open a discussion over here, too!

So, are we all geniuses, PC members? Certainly most of us are mad folk. Here is an interesting article on the supposed link between madness and genius and creativity: What Neuroscience Has To Say About The 'Tortured Genius' | The Huffington Post. The upshot is that some researchers believe there are links, and some don't. But you don't have to be mad to be creative, or to be a genius; creativity is a trait everyone has, and what it needs is development by individuals and society.

My own feeling is that genius and madness probably have little to do with each other. Overwork, too much stress, trauma, an unhealthy lifestyle, poor adaptive skills, and losing the genetic lottery have more to do with mental illness than genius or creativity do. Probably a lot of really smart and creative people exaggerate their "mental illnesses" to sound cool and garner sympathy, and a myth is born.

Here is another article on madness and creativity: Fine line between genius and madness, scientists find - Telegraph. These researchers found that certain genes correlated with both creativity and madness, but some genes showed higher chance of major creativity than others. This is interesting because it goes back to the genetic lottery I mentioned before. One gene expression gives you creativity; another gives you madness.

I am going to take a risk and claim to be a literary genius. Certainly I am a madman; maybe I got a double gene? I have written a novel which I think demonstrates my gifts. If there are any MacArthur Foundation nominators trolling these forums looking for people dumb enough to claim to be geniuses, get in touch! I'll clue you in on why I'm a literary genius. In case you want to judge the work itself without my input, you'll find it here: http://www.rdoering.com/temples.html. Scroll partway down the page, and you'll find the book as individual chapters or a whole unit. I've shown this book to a number of people, and the comment that comes back most often is: "It's pretty... What is it?" What it is, is genius.