“While psychological pain can cause all manner of suffering, it can also be an important driver of human creativity. Distress can be functional; we are often moved to create because we need to feel better, to improve the quality of our lives and the lives of people around us” writes the New York-based clinical psychologist Yosef Brody in an article (from 2013) on Psychology Today. The relationship between ‘pain’ and ‘poiesis’ has been identified by many great minds in human history. Einstein is supposed to have remarked that “feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavors and human creations” and in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian masterpiece Brave New World (1931), where “civilised” humans have annihilated every suffering of life simply by popping tablets of a hallucinogenic called soma into their mouths, only “savages” are in a position to recognise the truth, beauty and goodness of Shakespeare.

A fitting illustration…