Stress or Creative Pain ?

   Stressful week has just gone by. Why people get stressed out? I believe that stress is a complex trait. Multiple genomic and epigenomic factors might be contributing to it. Some people handle it well and some cannot. Certain amount of stress is healthy, some say, including myself. I believe sometime stress allow one to stay focused on the task at hand and weed out distraction. But some say stress is not at all needed for productivity and focus.

   As a postdoc scholar I am still to prove myself as a good scientist. Passion and hard work by itself will not vouch your merit. It needs proof. Productivity and quality of work is the only criteria that I would look into when I measure the merit of an individual in any field of work. I am earning for that kind of self-recognition. It needs lots of hard work and a pinch of luck. I believe that luck is nothing but a probability game. You try your luck till you get lucky. It is a frustrating situation. You try certain thing and it never work. You push yourself to the limit and it still does not work. That again is the perfect recipe for stress. But I heard that any creative process is extremely painful.

   I was reading the interview with a novelist who was saying that one of the most painful experiences is the pain you feel when you really want to write about something. The idea and material is in your brain and you somehow want to get it out. It is almost like pain felt by moms when they give birth (well I can only imagine). Anyway, one effective way out I found was talking to someone openly about the stress. Thereby I am able to find the root cause of the situation and act upon it. The second way out is physical activity, in my case running.

   Stress is a part of any creative process. It will be there no matter what. All we can do is find a way to manage it.