Not long ago, a gentleman from contacted me about an article I wrote, as he was researching issues concerning depressed inventors, innovators, and highly creative genius level individuals. So, is the stereotype type true? Are those who are so highly creative really mentally problematic, and often suffering from depression? Well, it turns out that is not typically the case, but there are still a higher number of depressed creative people by percentage than in the overall society as a whole.

So, when we talked about “Depressed Inventors” – I asked him if he himself was depressed? Why you ask? Well, because it seems that with brilliance often comes baggage. I’ve read several books on creativity of some of the greatest geniuses of all times, it seems this is quite common, but those innovators which succeed the most seem to have very mild depression (if any) and then hyper-manic states. Interesting isn’t it?

Indeed, I asked my acquaintance; “what have you learned on this topic in your online personal research?” Turns out there is not a lot of relevant information on the topic, but there is some, in fact, I have studied this dilemma the prior, perhaps we need more research on this. Maybe rather than giving depressed folks pharmaceuticals, we might instead test them for creativity, and move them into some sort of creative study, at least when it comes to kids in school. It’s a thought.

Interestingly enough, as a coordinator for a think tank which operates on the Internet, I’ve run across some wicked smart people, and some truly genius level creative types, and I have noticed at least some which do have mild depression now and again. It seems it may be something that just goes with the territory sometimes, and that’s why we have the stereotype, that we’ve all come to believe in. But, I’d warn the reader from buying into this line in every case, because, I’ve also observed folks who seem very even keel, and are definitely genius level innovators.

You see, stereotypes are fun to contemplate, and they are also worthy when profiling, but, they can be damaging too, and quite problematic. Therefore, be careful if you think that all creative geniuses are manically depressed, it simply is not so, in fact the chances are greater that they are not. However when pitted against over all society in percentages it is true that there are more chronically depressed or mildly depressed artists, painters, musicians, which fall into the genius category spectrum.