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Silvan Tomkins, from "Shame and its sisters" edited by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank, describes the innate affect of distress as uniquely human. This negative affect of distress is the affect most often encountered by humanist artists and writers, it seems to me. (Deleuze is also profoundly humanist with his vitalist ideas.) Having recently encountered, thought about and looked at human distress, one is more or less infected and affected by depression and distress. This may be one reason why artists and poets who must encounter what is human distress often fall into a messy depression and perhaps must fall into this black hole. So how to escape this messy humanity for a better? Just a few ideas I have encountered. The way this seems almost the only option, also gives way to happy comic affects which are also a feedback to the negative feeling of distress. So again, the artistic creation survives the negative. (As an eternal return?) For art to work, it seems, must overcome human distress. So, must be a profound humanism. Anyways, open to comments and other thoughts/ideas. -- have chronic fatigue syndrome so may be delayed in reply or brain fog weird just to let you know that's all, Chris Jones. Blog: http://abdevpoetics.blogspot.com/