Craziness is all around

The Saturday edition of the newspaper always comes with a themed magazine, and this week the theme is 'we're all crazy', about how nobody is really 'normal', when you look closely. This includes an article about crazy writers, or more generally crazy artists. Traumatising childhoods, bipolar disorder, autism, depression, narcissism, addictions, the list is almost endless. The list of famous artists suffering from these diseases is even longer, stretching from Mozart and Dickens via Woolf and Hemingway to Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga.
Those suffering from depression, the article goes, are good at keeping faith through difficult times, because that's what they're doing a lot. Churchill and his black dog are the stock example. Those who are narcissistic are best found on stage, where they will entertain people. Cue Lady Gaga. And then there are those who use all their negative experiences and/or depressed and/or manic periods to create great art. Because they see the world differently, because they can put themselves to one side and live inside the story, or just because they don't really give a damn what anybody else thinks about them.
Long story short: mental diseases or problems are great if you want to be an artist. It's also great for the rest of us, because a) these people are turning their attention to art and not self-destruction (although in the case of Kurt Cobain or Van Gogh that may not be strictly speaking true) and b) we get brilliant new art to boot.

But does this mean you have to be a little bit crazy to be a good artist? Can't normal people write/paint/compose nice things?
Jane Austen didn't have any particular mental illness, as far as we know, and she wrote pretty good novels. Same goes for Shakespeare's plays, or Rembrandt's paintings, or Bach's music. I know many popular musicians who may be a bit more expressive than the rest of us, but that doesn't make them raving narcissists. Then another part of the paper included an interview with Eleanor Catton, the youngest ever winner of the Man Booker Prize (The Luminaries, which has been living in my bookcase for far too long without being read) and she came across as pretty normal, maybe a bit tired, but nothing too funny. Of course, the article about the 'crazy artists' doesn't mention these people at all.

So what is this thing about mental illnesses combined with artistic genius? Clearly, it's not as if the former is a strict prerequisite for the latter. Even more, there are many mentally ill people who never produce any art worth speaking of in their lifetimes. So is it just the connection that makes us wonder? 'Hey, I thought they were crazy, but look at what they can do!' Or is there really something special to their works, something that we can't quite grasp, but that makes us wonder? Or maybe even makes us slightly jealous, that someone can see the world and create these things while we will never be able to?

But then again, as the rest of the magazine goes, none of us are completely 'normal', we all carry our own special kind of strangeness or madness inside. Maybe some show it more than others, and find it easier to express themselves to channels that others don't generally use.
Anyway, I don't really see the big deal here. And taking stock of my favourite authors and painters, most of them don't show that many cracks and shadows, so maybe I myself am too 'normal' to appreciate the true genius of the others. Maybe that's why I wonder at the article, because I don't really see the connection all that strongly. Or maybe it's because I still dream of becoming a writer some day, and I don't want to be put off by the idea that there has to be something 'wrong' with you to be able to succeed...