I'm 25. On November 1st, 2023, I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia -- or Schizoaffective Disorder, specifically. I'm a very strange, broken individual. Each day, I spend over an hour staring into mirrors, fixating on my flaws. My sexuality is weird: I'm disgusted by penetration, and mostly attracted to little girls. I have 0 friends, I have no desire for companionship, and I don't think I've ever been lonely. As a teenager my mind snapped, and since then I've been unable to feel emotions or enjoy things. As of late, my skin and hair quality have begun to collapse. I have multiple cavities, and two teeth which require root canals. I have awful insomnia. I can't hold a job. I've tried a dozen medications; all were failures. By most accounts, I am a genetic abomination, descendent of schizophrenics and drug-addicted crossdressers. But I feel I could someday produce an incredible work of art.

This documentary comes to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stDhBFwRbI0
While Robert Crumb became a famous cartoonist and symbol of 60's counter-culture, his brother Charles sat in his room loaded on anti-psychotics, rereading 19th century books, and refusing to leave the house. It is clear that Charles had immense potential, probably moreso than Robert (whose comics are stylish but shallow). But somehow, his mind became so dysfunctional that he could do nothing but sit there and rot. Before the documentary released, he committed suicide. Many blame his mother, but in my view Charles was broken in the same way that Hemingway was broken, in which no amount of striving or success could fix. And he had to live that way.

From an outsider's perspective it's easy to say what Charles should have done: "Just make art." Lots of people say exactly that. But view it from his perspective. How would that help him? Reading was the closest he got to happiness; art wouldn't take him there. There are certain creative individuals like Charles Crumb, Hemingway, Woolf or Van Gogh who are genetically fated to suffer. They have creative gifts, but are destined for misery anyway (the suicide rate among famous writers is remarkably high). Many great artists don't enjoy the work but pursue it anyway out of some odd compulsion or fallacious line of reasoning. Michelangelo for instance pursued art as a means of salvation, and died believing that he failed to live up to his potential. They often function under some stupid carrot-and-stick logic like this. Art isn't the magical respite for them you'd expect. And for what? So that others can reap the fruit with none of the struggle that went into making it? If their talents are even recognized, it is often after their death.

Upon Charles' death, R. Crumb remarked "He was basically already dead." This is true. Charles lived a joyless, empty life, and suicide was a sensible decision. Yet for the time that a person like Charles decides to stay alive, it only makes sense to pursue art. It will not make you happy, but when you are broken in such a way, it is the only thing to live for. Without it, you are a failed experiment in genetics that would be better off dead. Charles was destined for a terrible life, but it is a shame he gave up on comics, because the two decades of sitting in his room and arguing with Mrs. Crumb surely made him no happier. A little effort each day, and maybe it could have gone somewhere.

I'm moving in the same direction as Charles, and starting antipsychotic medication. I spend my days listening to audiobooks (nothing modern). And I don't know what comes next. Every few days, I begin to make art but get discouraged: I know it won't make me happy, it'll take so much effort, no one will see it, and maybe I don't even have the potential. But I have ideas, and I suppose I have to. Because I am just like Charles Crumb, and without art, I'm basically already dead.