We know that creativity is empirically correlated with mood-swing disorders. A couple of decades ago, Harvard researchers found that people showing “exceptional creativity”—which they put at less than 1 percent of the population—were more likely to suffer from manic depression or to be near-relatives of manic-depressives. As for the psychological mechanisms behind creative genius, those remain pretty much a mystery. About the only point generally agreed on is that, as Pinker put it, “geniuses are wonks.” They work hard; they immerse themselves in their genre.
