"Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." - Don Marquis

***

"Who are they, these people we call ‘characters’? Let’s be frank: from a medical point of view, they are all neurotics, psychotics, paranoiacs, melancholics, schizophrenics: in short, sick people. As literature, sure, they are enthralling; but in reality, they would be in urgent need of medical attention. Characters in plays are sick people: this generalisarion we can make without fear of error. And it is for this single reason that we go to the theatre. I have seen Hamlet dozens of times, I love the play and its eponymous protagonist, but I am not sure if I would want to invite him round to dinner every Saturday, along with other friends, to spend the evening chatting about being or not being.

Take the following scenario. Who would want to go out to go and see a piece of theatre like this? A young man and a young woman, both good-looking and in good health, in love with each other, watch their children getting ready for school, where they are by far the best pupils. They accompany them to the school gate. Then they cross a flower-filled garden under the admiring and sympathetic gaze of their friendly neighbours, when, all of a sudden — here comes the postman! Hold onto your hats... he is the bearer of glad tidings — both mothers-in-law are in perfect health, and they are on a cruise around the Greek islands, and the weather is good...

Who would happily sit through such a play? No one! Not even Doris Day would perform in such a play. The only audience in such a theatre would be flies. The thing that prompts us to go to the theatre is conflict, combat; we want to see mad people and fanatics, thieves and murderers. And, I accept, a smattering of good souls, iust enough to set off the evil in all its glory. We hunger for the strange, the abnormal.

And so our actor — of sound mind — must play a sick character."

--- The rainbow of desire: the Boal method of theatre and therapy / Augusto Boal, Adrian Jackson


I think this explains why people who study or write literature all have issues.