![Still from Lars von Trier’s Melancholia.
Martin Heidegger writes:
Freedom is only to be found where there is a burden to be shouldered. In creative achievement this burden always represents an imperative and a need that weights heavily upon man’s overall mood, so that he comes to be in a mood of melancholy. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy [Schwermut], whether we are clearly aware of the fact or not, whether we speak at length about it or not… Aristotle already recognized this connection between creativity and melancholia when he asked the question: Why is it that all those men who have achieved exceptional things, whether in philosophy, in politics, in poetry, or in the arts, are clearly melancholics? Aristotle explicitly mentions Empedocles, Socrates, and Plato in this context… As a creative and essential activity of human Dasein, philosophy stands in the fundamental attunement of melancholy.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx80rmXGlz1qb9yj1o1_1280.png)
Still from Lars von Trier’s Melancholia.
Martin Heidegger writes:
Freedom is only to be found where there is a burden to be shouldered. In creative achievement this burden always represents an imperative and a need that weights heavily upon man’s overall mood, so that he comes to be in a mood of melancholy. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy [Schwermut], whether we are clearly aware of the fact or not, whether we speak at length about it or not… Aristotle already recognized this connection between creativity and melancholia when he asked the question: Why is it that all those men who have achieved exceptional things, whether in philosophy, in politics, in poetry, or in the arts, are clearly melancholics? Aristotle explicitly mentions Empedocles, Socrates, and Plato in this context… As a creative and essential activity of human Dasein, philosophy stands in the fundamental attunement of melancholy.
