“This doesn’t mean that we should be sad, or go deaf, even if once a century these conditions produce sublime music. Nor must we be great artists in order to view our own struggles as objects of creative transformation. What if we simply took whatever pain we couldn’t get rid of, and turned it into something else? We could write, act, study, cook, dance, compose, do improv, dream up a new business, decorate our kitchens; there are hundreds of things we could do, and whether we do them “well,” or with distinction, is beside the point. This is why “arts therapy”—in which people express and process their troubles by making art—can be so effective, even if its practitioners don’t exhibit their work on gallery walls.”