No, regular people don't fear not being special like "creative temperment people." In fact, since it is this drama queen type who always yells the loudest about being special, we can see it's her who needs to be special. Note: not all creative people are like this. Most people realize that all people have creative moments, it isn't a world of 2 types of people: creative and noncreatie. All people are creative, just in different ways, differnty times, different temperments. This narcicistic need to seperate oneself from the rest of the world and announce oneself superior, Isna't creative, but narcicistis. It have nothing to do with creativity. Look at different people and ask what you can appreciat in them. We're all fighting a great battle here and it's horrible disrespctful and self-centered to think you're the only one struggling, trying to be relevant, hoping to make something big. Everyone has those hopes.

We human being are never going to be completely pure in motive or completely free of self-doubt or completely anything. We're going to be evolving, processing, creating, taking in the world, transforming it, moving on. We're in motion. This motion can be exhausting. And it wears down the machinery. So we need tools for maintenance and repair. Self-appointed "creative types," and the rest of the lesser types as well. "creative types" would know that if they listened to anyone else.

I think the hostility to both the idea that their is a creative temperment and the problems that people of such a temperment have in grad school stems from the insecurity that non-creatives (and I include myself in this group) have over being somewhat ordinary. There is a wonderful scene in Woody Allen's "Bullets over Broadway" where John Cusack's mediocre playwright character finally admits, "I'm not an artist." It's one of the most painful, yet freeing, things in the world to admit.

Like Elaine, I went to a mediocre mid-western college where the professors encouraged me to go to graduate school in English Literature. I did, and I dropped out by the end of my first semester - giving up some very cushy funding - to work in a coffee shop & write. Grad school was a torment from day one. The professors were imperious & mean - "If you had gone to a GOOD undergrad institution, you would have studied this," - the other students were pretentious as hell - one guy began virtually every sentence with the phrase, "What's essentially problematic..." and another one literally walked out of a classroom discussion after I argued that Wordsworth wouldn't be able to get published if he were writing today - and the curriculum was ridiculous - Not a single "primary" text was assigned my first semester, not one novel, NOT ONE in a program where I was supposed to be learning about literature and all of us, regardless of specialty, were forced to translate passages from old English.

Writing while working shitty jobs also proved difficult & not nearly as romantic as it sounds so I decided to try graduate school again, and this time I picked Law, the antithesis to English Literature, thinking I could make some cash to support my writing habit. And I loved it - every second of it. I ultimately chose not to practice b/c the work itself is soul-crushing, but the study is exhilerating. I barely wrote while I was in school, and I discovered that I didn't really miss it that much.

The point of this long, belabored story is that we aren't all cut out to be creative types. As my best friend - a composer - describes another of his friends, "She has all the angst and turmoil of an artist without the talent." If you substitute "perserverence & patience" for talent, I think you have the situation of about 99% of people who attempt to become artists. The important thing to remember is that you can admire artists and revere art without having to be an artist or to make art. It's ok to be ordinary.

In response to 'Graduate schools can drive you crazy', i REALLY can relate to the threads of the topic. The first girl fell in love and her boyfriend joined her while she pursued her degree. She doesn't know how lucky she is he did this for her. When i got accepted to my dream school in New York, my fiance' and i tried to hold our relationship together long distance. But he drifted away from me and broke it off during my second year, smack in the middle of thesis. Which is where i am at now.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my choice to come to graduate school. I fell into the career of design with a self-taught background and felt the need to fill in the gaps with a design education. I wanted the experience of being a design student and being in the company of others who felt the same way.

When I got accepted to the college of my choice, there was no doubt in my mind I was going. I felt I was fulfilling my dream. I left the job, the house and the fiance' (with plans to return home and get married after graduation). School started and I became immersed in the program. It was exciting, consuming, thought provoking and I loved and continue to love every minute of it.

Every two months I would fly home and unwind in the company of the person I love. We would play catch up on what was going on in each others lives in person, not just over emails and daily phone calls.

Today, a year and a half into school I'm going through something I never saw coming; a break up. The person on the other end couldn't handle what he calls 'waiting'. And I think seeing me become so immersed in something other than him, school and design, wasn't something he could understand. At first I was completely devastated. I never saw it coming. I continue to feel abandoned but am dealing with it day by day. Excercise, meditation, therapy, and the support of friends are getting me through this.

But every day I think about him and the choices I made. I am never going to look back on my decision to pursue my master's degree in design. If I hadn't I feel I would have looked back on my life and felt regret. At the same time, a relationship that meant the world to me has come to an end because of it. I still go back and forth wondering what could've happened.