sickness and production

As I write this whilst recovering from sickness, a thought occurs: sickness drives intellectual pursuit for many fairly obvious reasons.

Chief among them is that it keeps a person houseridden. If every human was perfectly healthy, they would likely get their kicks from sports of various kinds, or at least from exercise. Failing that, they might spend their time outdoors sight-seeing. In either case they wouldn’t be rolling out of their bed and right to a typewriter or musical instrument.

Secondly, we all exercise. If we don’t run miles everyday, then we read pages everyday. Or an expansive collection of other activities. Because the sickling is kept from exercising physically, they exercise intellectually. Just as the athlete is in hell when he has a debilitating injury, the intellectual among us are in hell when they can’t perform in their respective capacities.

Last, but probably not final, is that sickness connects people with their mortality in a way that most people wouldn’t otherwise recognize. Even if you know you’ve just got the flu, it makes you feel as if you are going to die, or could die, during any bout of sickness. This perversely lights a flame under the sickling to document their experiences in some manner before their death.

This connection can be seen in a more scientific manner; simply read the life stories of successful artists and intellectuals. Almost all of them had some type, or many types, of afflictions.