The Other Side of Madness…

“You know,” a friend confessed, “my writing was much better when I was suffering.”

We were talking about breakdowns. The terrible journey we had taken from the staright path of normality. Some years back, we had both hit our walls. We were both in professions that indicated our public spirit and quests to improve things.

We both wobbled at about the same time, with the finishing line just becoming a reality. The crash saw us being stopped in our tracks before being flung back to someplace that was around the starting line. We have both lost credibility, wages, pensions and prestige. But now we seem to have lost our creativity.

“It comes with the territory,” I wisely explained.

He gave me one of those stoic looks, one that says, ‘sure I know, but it doesn’t stop it from being just a little shitty’. The last sting in the tail of…