"...there was nothing to hold her, she was free - what a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind; ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were fre when they were cast out of their homes - free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger." -The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall

Madness and creativity get associated, and this is not entirely inaccurate. Speaking for myself, depression and anxiety have broadened the range of my experience of the world in certain ways, have dislocated me in a way which makes me a more original and more challenging writer and scholar.

However, what I worry about is that people will only see this silver lining (which isn't common to everyone with a mood or thought disorder), and they won't understand how horrible mental illness is - the decrease in quality of life, the sheer suffering, the stigma, the lack of understanding, the expense, access to medical care, the side effects of medications, the frustration of not finding an effective medication, and so on and so on. 

Recent conversations in the emergence working group on "unintended consequences" have reminded me of a book on the problem of "unconceived alternatives", and those in turn relate in interesting ways to issues in philosophy of science, in neurobiology, in human social organization, and, of course, in life in general. Let me see if I can explain.

The Murky Politics of Mind Body, in today's New York Times Magazine, intersects in interesting ways with a conversation this week in our senior seminar course in neural and behavioral sciences. The Times article poses the question

"How much of a difference should it make to health care - and health insurance - if a condition is physical or mental?"

Hello, reader. Today I will be talking about uncomfortable situations in life and how they can affect us positively if we allow them. Do not be afraid, however, to read on from this point—I have no intention of being the distributor of uncomfortable feelings (although that intent may change from this sentence to the next). Hopefully, after reading this paper, you will more often seek out the uncomfortable than avoid or ignore it. I want to provide a prescriptive redemption of uncomfortable situations. However, I am exploring discomfort from the point of view of the person feeling the emotion, not the person eliciting the emotion. I cannot endorse that we, as human beings,