Life Musings

I learned something new today. Today I read a couple of articles which said that writers tend to be depressive. According to the American Association for the Prevention of Suicide, writers and poets are four times more likely than others to suffer from depression. Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Faulkner, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all suffered from depressive illnesses. Other great writers such as Hemingway, Woolf, and Plath went through and committed suicide.

That's a sobering thought. It does make sense, though. Writing is a highly introspective activity, and it can be both lonely and depressing, especially when one is forced to isolate one's self. Writing can be a collaborative effort, but for the most part, it requires working alone.

At the same time though, I've read that writing -- maintaining a diary, for example -- can also help lift one's self out of depression. It can be a great way of expressing one's feelings and providing a measure of catharsis.