Happiness and creativity

I was listening to an interesting program on the radio the other day, a trio of stories about a writer, an artist and a musician. I was only half paying attention as I was driving a child somewhere, but at some point a snippet jumped out at me, I think from the writer. She was talking about there being, for her, a clear link between unhappiness and even mild depression, and an ability to be creative. She needed to be in a slightly darker frame of mind in order to be motivated to form her thoughts and write well. This was rather paradoxical, as only when she felt as if she were a failure could she generate that which made her successful. And therefore when success did come, and a book was accepted by a publisher or whatever, she completely lost the ability to repeat the feat. Could she - should she - deliberately try to be unhappy in order to be happy? A bit of a mind-bender n'est-ce pas?

Happily, no such absurdity exists for me. I find myself this summer, indeed most of this year, being really quite content with my lot in life. Home life is pleasant, the family are happy, and we enjoy our time together. Work is going well, I'm relatively comfortable doing what I am doing and find myself able to deal with the stresses it brings. Time for most hobbies is equally divided and I find myself still enjoying all of them, albeit mostly in moderation. Thoughts of a mid-life crisis were averted simply by wearing a jacket. Basically things are all good, and if this link between anxiety and creativity is indeed a thing, then that's where I am. And that's really all I have to say today.