creativity

"The individual completes the creative work vastly relieved and more a person than before - but also maimed. We often hear the statement after a harrowing task which took years, "I'll never be the same again." It is the hurt after the struggle, the imminence of a neurotic or schizophrenic break, though the person may simultaneously be more a person after the wrestling. Van Gogh was maimed; Nietzsche was maimed; Kierkegaard was maimed. It is the danger of the razor-blade edge of heightened consciousness on which the creative person lives. No man shall see God and live; but Jacob did see God - and had to - and, though he lived, he was maimed. This is the paradox of consciousness. How much self-awareness can a man bear? Does not creativity take one to the frontiers of consciousness and push one beyond them? Does not this require an effort and courage beyond human capacities? but doesn't it also push back the frontiers of consciousness so that those who follow, like the explorers in early America, may erect cities and live there? This is the mystery."
~ Rollo May, "Love and Will"