Read the essay by Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow,which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about creative people. As a general rule, happy well-adjusted people aren't creative or risk takers. Happy well adjusted people go into insurance sales or open small businesses.
What is interesting to me, though probably to nobody else, is that the large cities produce very few actors or directors of any note. The great actors of the 20th century, Brando etc., all came from the "heartland." There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but its interesting to note. Paul Shrader, who is a hugely talented writer/director grew up in a strict religious household and didn't even see a movie until he was a teen.
"Read the essay by Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow,which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about creative people."
1. No single essay is likely to tell you all you need to know about anything.
2. Edmund Wilson was a leftist, and therefore functionally (though probably not clinically) insane.
"As a general rule, happy well-adjusted people aren't creative or risk takers. Happy well adjusted people go into insurance sales or open small businesses."
Insurance salesmen can be extremely creative, and opening a small business is almost by definition creative (as well as *extremely* risky). Formulating a new legal argument is creative; inventing a new kind of digital memory is creative; devising a process for using e-coli to produce insulin is creative...
I don't think that the only manifestations of creativity that matter are those enshrined by what I earlier called "the crippled personalities that gravitate toward 'creative' bohemias."
"Paul Shrader, who is a hugely talented writer/director"
Writer - filmography
(In Production) (1990s) (1980s) (1970s)
Torch (2006) (announced)
Bringing Out the Dead (1999) (screenplay)
Forever Mine (1999) (written by)
Affliction (1997) (screenplay)
Touch (1997/I) (screenplay)
City Hall (1996) (written by)
Light Sleeper (1992) (written by)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) (screenplay)
Light of Day (1987)
The Mosquito Coast (1986) (screenplay)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
... aka Mishima (USA: short title)
Cat People (1982) (uncredited)
Raging Bull (1980)
American Gigolo (1980)
Old Boyfriends (1979)
Hardcore (1979)
... aka The Hardcore Life (UK)
Blue Collar (1978)
Rolling Thunder (1977) (screenplay) (story)
Obsession (1976) (screenplay) (story)
Taxi Driver (1976) (written by)
The Yakuza (1975)
I'm looking hard in that list for something that would justify the label, "hugely talented."
Just don't see anything, sorry.
I do see a couple of things that might justify the use of the term, "crippled personality."
Perhaps heartland people comprehend American culture best. Many southerners go back 10-20 generations, whereas a lot of New York City people go back 1-2 generations (i.e. fresh off the boat).