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Does anybody feel Buk was mentally ill -- that not being bad as most of the creative people in our society display some degree of mental illness. Any thoughts?
The Task and the Glory
Not clinically or psychologically mentally ill . . . no. But he did suffer periods of great emotional and physical stress, especially at the time he was living out his contradictory nightmare at the post office?i.e. trying to stay alive creatively at the same time he needed a roof over his head . . . supporting his daughter, etc. . . and yet those situations drove him on as an evolving writer. . . In his mid-30's, he spent some time for health reasons at General or County Hospital because of the consequences of his heavy drinking and before he discovered the thrill of breaking even at the race track. . . I happen to consider him one of the sanest men in recent times, drunk or sober, because he found that place of creative bliss and inner peace despite the brutal beatings of his childhood by his sadistic father and the humiliating shit jobs he had to endure (but learned from) for the first 50 years of his life. Ultimately, he appeared to have transcended it all, and that is my personal definition of mental health.
Crazy in Sedona . . . . Poptop
Not clinically or psychologically mentally ill . . . no. But he did suffer periods of great emotional and physical stress, especially at the time he was living out his contradictory nightmare at the post office?i.e. trying to stay alive creatively at the same time he needed a roof over his head . . . supporting his daughter, etc. . . and yet those situations drove him on as an evolving writer. . . In his mid-30's, he spent some time for health reasons at General or County Hospital because of the consequences of his heavy drinking and before he discovered the thrill of breaking even at the race track. . . I happen to consider him one of the sanest men in recent times, drunk or sober, because he found that place of creative bliss and inner peace despite the brutal beatings of his childhood by his sadistic father and the humiliating shit jobs he had to endure (but learned from) for the first 50 years of his life. Ultimately, he appeared to have transcended it all, and that is my personal definition of mental health.
Crazy in Sedona . . . . Poptop
Well he was 4F in WII, apparently for emotional reasons... Surely its quite likely that his psych interview for the draft was a bit more than the 3 or 4 simple questions that pop up in his writing and Born footage... And of course the frequent references to suicide - surely not just for effect?
Who knows.
From his writing, generally, I'd say no, I don't get that impression.
From Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
(Sorry the formatting isn't exact)
Who knows.
From his writing, generally, I'd say no, I don't get that impression.
From Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
(Sorry the formatting isn't exact)
Henry Miller used to write that mental illness was the result of trying to overly adapt oneself to an insane world instead of adapting to oneself... So who's to say how much Bukowski's state of mind would have improved if he hadn't been beaten on a regular basis starting at age 6? That's like trying to adapt to an impossible situation, and there's no solving except to go within... Then perhaps one later realizes that just about everyone has some locked cave within the mind that needs airing out in the light of a burning sun... or swept clean with the big brushing broom of the creative process...
God, yes.
Actually, Miller was not so much talking about the mentally ill but about the "neurotic," in a discussion with the writer Anais Nin. They were saying that today's neurotic was the person of tomorrow, because he refuses or shouldn't be adapting to a sick society; and by not adapting, he causes a necessary change in society itself. I think I understand what she means. The other side of it is that sometimes the demands of the society"”rent, utilities, financial demands, etc."”has the man by the balls and the woman by her equivalents.
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i have a great friend who fears/realizes he might be bi-polar/schizo - he refuses to be diagnosed. he doesnt want the drugs that will make him into something that he isnt. he has his moments - depressions, anxieties, etc. but somehow he has been pretty successful in dealing with them - plus he has a pretty good paying factory/union job. at times his paranoia boils to the surface, but most of the time he has it together. for how long? who knows? but i understand him wanting to live a life without having ones biochemistry readjusted. yes indeed. (oh - just watched the south park episode where all the kids in town are given drugs because of "a.d.d." - what kind of world our we sculpting for the young ones?)
Is it true that Buk often bathed five times a day? I find that quite eye-opening re: his mental state.
As per the other posters, all of us in some way are mentally maladjusted - or should be. Maladjusted to a job that is slowly killing you, to a socity slowly fucking itself to death. Greed, avarice, envy, TV psychosis, the lot.
Cevantes said something along the lines of "the only true insanity is to live the way we do and not as we should" or something.
I think all of us self-medicate in some way - Buk did by drink as a lot of us no doubt do. But at least Buk found a voice, some sense of clarity with his writing. Didn't he once say that writing was the only thing that saved him from going insane. Usually, insanity is a continuum - it isn't a fixed destination. I suppose most of us are somewhere along the line and at times further forward or back depending on everything going on around.
I don't know I'm rambling. I'd rather drink to self-medicate than be a drone filling myself up with TV soaps, jobs, shopping etc.
As per the other posters, all of us in some way are mentally maladjusted - or should be. Maladjusted to a job that is slowly killing you, to a socity slowly fucking itself to death. Greed, avarice, envy, TV psychosis, the lot.
Cevantes said something along the lines of "the only true insanity is to live the way we do and not as we should" or something.
I think all of us self-medicate in some way - Buk did by drink as a lot of us no doubt do. But at least Buk found a voice, some sense of clarity with his writing. Didn't he once say that writing was the only thing that saved him from going insane. Usually, insanity is a continuum - it isn't a fixed destination. I suppose most of us are somewhere along the line and at times further forward or back depending on everything going on around.
I don't know I'm rambling. I'd rather drink to self-medicate than be a drone filling myself up with TV soaps, jobs, shopping etc.
Bukfan
"The law is wrong; I am right"
Amen, Ona - Amen!
It makes me think of the old Canned Heat tune "Down in the gutter, but free"...
