[presidio9]

Others who were either diagnosed with or had all the symptoms of being bipolar: Isaac Newton, Lincoln, Churchill,Hamilton, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Buzz Aldrin, Van Gogh, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, Curt Cobain, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemmingway, Frederick Olmsted, Friedrich Nietzsche, Florence Nightingale, Edgar Allan Poe, Jackson Pollock, Ted Turner. The list goes on, but these examples are frequently cited by mental health professionals. I use bipolar because it is a good example of psychiatric disorder with a genetic basis. There are varying severities to the illness, but people with bipolar tend to die ten to fifteen years earlier than the normal population and lose another fifteen years of productivity. So why does the gene persist? Look at the names at the top of the list and there’s your answer. People with bipolar see the world differently and they are habitual risk takers. So Newton, and Poe, and Olmsted, and Van Gogh, and (yes) even Churchill did not overcome a birth defect and become sucessful in spite of it. That birth defect WAS who they were and a key ingredient in that sucess. God doesn’t make mistakes.

[Gene Eric]

>> God doesn’t make mistakes.

Maybe we’re the mistake; the normality that hinders evolution.

Interesting list.

[metmom]

What good is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul?

There’s more to life than a “perfect” body.

And just who gets to decide what “perfect” is anyway?