Cyclothymia

Nearly all of my creative friends have some degree of bi-polar energy and mood swings. Maybe it is a good thing and not a disorder after all (except when it's extreme). What does it mean that this has been kept alive in our genes? When hypomania hit Vincent Van Gogh and Ludwig von Beethoven they didn't go shopping at the mall, they composed and painted and wrote. Is the bipolar cycle a remnant of our agricultural heritage? Now our society wants us to always be INDUSTRIOUS MANIC ROBOTS and just race time and spend money, have no yin to counterbalance our yang, no grief to offset and nourish our joy. The medicines are treating only half the cycle. We should be embracing and learning about the whole.