I came across this idea after a dark period of meditation: creativity is the productive use of rumination, anxiety or mania. The best creators I know (offhand example, Heston Blumenthal) had rampant mental illness during their most creative periods. I myself suffer from clinical anxiety periodically, which I have to manage proactively.

It’s very sobering to realize you have to take the bad with the good, and sometimes it’s not worth it. Being average isn’t so bad.