Kanye West’s Bipolar Benefits
Everyone talks about the problems of being manic or depressed—what about the benefits? Kanye is a genius fuelled by bipolar energy and more people will see that in the new documentary: jeen-yuhs
I benefit from Bipolar 2—a mental health condition which means one thing:
I can feel more than you can.
It is like being gifted with an incredible cardiovascular system or great muscle structure, but for thinking.
When I have energy, I am simply unstoppable. I can destroy people who I fight. I can break records when I kite. I can run faster than 99.99% of humans on earth.
When I am depressed, it is all consuming. I have been totally flattened by break-ups, my credit card debts, and watching founders I invested in turn into balding tyrants.
This is why I am so excited for the new documentary about Kanye West, Jeen-Yuhs:
A Bipolar Jeen-Yuhs
Kanye is hero to all the bipolar battlers out there. To me, I see a man who uses his illness to win
If you want to know what it is like to be around a bipolar man all the time, go to his partner. Kim Kardashian shared a powerful statement on it:
What she is trying to tell you is this: no amount of money, therapy, medication or help can stop Kanye’s energy when he is experiencing a period of extreme mania or hypomania. He is an unstoppable force of nature who feels the world and creates his own reality.
You love the art but you hate the work
People love the results but hate the methods
Name anyone alive today who is more culturally significant than Kanye West? Do you think it is easy to push the worlds of music, fashion & art at the same time? No.
When you tuck yourself in at night, Kanye is working. When you hit the snooze alarm, Kanye is working. When you were out drinking, Kanye was working. When you were getting into student debt, Kanye was working. When you were trying to get a boring job, Kanye was working.
This man is absolutely insanely relentless. You are not. You are normal. He is not.
Passion is intimidating
You cannot possibly comprehend the kind of confidence that this human being has in his brain
I want you to do something for me: try drinking 10 shots of espresso in 10 minutes.
Will you do it? No. You are too scared of that much energy. You cannot handle it.
Bipolar folks like Kanye and I deal with this much energy for months. You cannot even handle it for a few hours. That is why we are different. We are the bipolar battlers. We fought against our illness, figured out how to use it to our advantage, and we beat it.
If you want to change things, you cannot accept things. You have to believe you can bend reality to your will. That is not a comfortable state of mind. Kanye went to war with the culture and he won:
“For Kanye West, dying without a legacy was unacceptable”
What my bipolar has given me
I am the best in the world at believing in people before others
I have written about my experiences with bipolar before, I shared some of this on Twitter before I left Dorsey’s ultra-woke insanity-inducing algorithmic mess:
Ultimately my bipolar has given me the gift of absolutely ridiculous levels of belief in the brilliance of others. I see people before anyone. I have found just about every single technological trend that matters today before anyone. Just witness the track record:
How many people have you met at my age who even come close to this? None.
I have been looking for people on my level. I cannot find them. I find people.
I see aliens everywhere. They come to me. They feel my care and my glow.
They come to me. They take my energy. They use it for the creativity. They win.
That is the benefit of my bipolar. I can infuse the most amazing people on the planet with the creative energy they need to succeed. It is my gift. It is my contribution.
It is my legacy.
I HATE BEING BI-POLAR, IT'S AWESOME
Kanye West was trying to explain to people what it is like for him for very long time
“It's not an opposite. It's not: 'I hate being bi-polar, it's awesome' West explained.
It drives more of how you really feel. Doesn't do a opposite thing. I think it's important for us to have open conversations about mental health, especially with me being black, because we never had therapists in the black community. We never approach like taking medication or not.
I think it's good that when I had my first complete blackout at age five, my mom didn't fully medicate me, because I might have never been Ye in this Times Square [building].”
If I Die Today
Will anything I did matter?
The majority of my contribution to society is so far is production. I have produced founders the way great artists are found in their sound. Kanye West started his career as a producer and then he became a rapper. He moved from supporter to creator.
I am about to do the same. You are about to see me try my hand at building Balance for the third time. I have sacrificed thousands of Ether, over 6 years of my life, and my sanity for this project. That is not a normal thing to do.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
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deep appreciation for this post. keep the energy going!
Lovely read, Ric!