People simply learn to process information to the point where it doesn't serve true creativity.

Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them."

[Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking (The Creativity Post, December 6, 2011)]

I was working as a stockbroker in New York and had the seemingly perfect life.

I left an office at the top of the Pan Am Building, a nine-room apartment, and a farm in Vermont because I was aching inside. It took an analyst to tell me I could write a note of permission to become a musician and sign it.

I had been the dutiful son and husband for so long, I had forgotten about living for myself.

We can’t turn our true selves off and on situationally and expect them to carry and sustain us. Rationing creativity results in bipolarism of the spirit. Our creativity is also our life force. When we turn it off and on like a spigot, we start to become less and less able to control the valve.