Okay, but for real though, the saffron extract is doing some neurochemical lifting, here.

Today I have: done two loads of laundry, including sheets, remade the bed, vacuumed, put away the groceries, made taco pie, watered the plants, made a batch of homemade tortillas, washed all the cooking dishes, and I feel astonishingly not like a used dishrag. Accomplished and reasonably relaxed, rather. It is not inconceivable that I may be able to scrub the cats’ water fountain out in a bit.

It’s been ages since I had the energy/focus/making-things-happen-ness to make tortillas, and I love homemade tortillas with a great passion, so this is a definite win.

(The saffron has enough oomph to cause some mild withdrawal symptoms, in fact, if you miss a dose, so treat this like you would any other psychoactive and keep an emergency dose.)

So, a lot of us have probably heard the hoary old myth that one has to suffer to produce art, right?

It's a load of flaming shit. And it's a dangerous load of flaming shit, at that.

You don't have to suffer to produce art. You have to have the capacity to suffer, but actually doing so is in no way requisite.

Thing is, creativity, inspiration if you will, and intense emotion come out of the same brain-place. Psychoactive drugs like anti-depressants put a big, thick quilt over that place. They muffle the up-spikes and down-spikes both, and that includes creativity.

Now, if you're spiking so hard you're about to kill yourself (or do anything similarly extreme, including neglecting yourself), that's what you damn well need. You do what you need.

But the fact remains that muffling creativity is one of the things those drugs do, and if your creativity is one of your coping mechanisms... well, you're probably going to have trouble. Denying that fact won't get us anywhere. It's a hard line to walk, using a muffler long enough to get balance back without losing it completely because your usual balance is gone.

I suspect this is actually the root of the myth, because plenty of us choose to be miserable and in danger rather than give up that one thing we know will make things better in some way.

This post brought to you by reflections on the nature of serotonin supplements as opposed to reuptake inhibitors. I endorse them highly. I have almost as much energy as a normal person this week, and I can still write.