Goodfellas

God Entity: Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you, and if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch. Like a safecracker, or a pickpocket.

Bender: Or a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money!

God Entity: Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing. When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

The Raven

In the months since my bipolar II diagnosis, I've discovered that the "Bipolar: True Hollywood Story" is much, much lamer than its celebrity persona. 

Modern media would have us believe that a bipolar diagnosis is the medical equivalent of hitting the mental illness jackpot. Nowadays, it's somehow become synonymous with the "mad genius," bringing to mind all manner of artists caught in the midst of mania creating masterpieces.

Robin Williams 1951-2014 

But nobody pictures Vincent van Gogh refilling his pill dispenser each week or DMX arguing with his insurance provider about whether or not a pre-authorization is required for seroquel. 

In humble experience, bipolar has been disproportionately heavy on lithium shakes, nausea, and memory loss and light on creative sparks of mad-scientist-like genius. But what I have experienced is a new underlying pressure to harness greatness in some way from the condition. And now that my peers include Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, and Jackson Pollock can my greatest artistic achievement really be a blog full of fart jokes, dirty posts, and animal videos? Leave it Peanut.....

Bipolar Superpowers activate! 

Wham! Wham! Hmmm, maybe the on-switch is broken? I'll bring that up to my doctor. 

In the meantime, Natasha Tracy examines this issue beautifully in her post Do the Mentally Ill Have to Be Extraordinary to Be Accepted?