Elizabeth warns us that the life of the writer is a life that could end up on “the scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with the bitter ash of failure.” Why do creative ventures threaten our mental health, she wonders. Why is there writer’s block but no chemical engineering block? Artistry, it seems, always leads to anguish. This anguish is caused by the clash between the daemon and the resistance. Society pushes artists to be geniuses, as opposed to encouraging artists to allow the genius within to flourish. Different tasks.
