If I may take a stab at it... I think it might have something to do with the disparate scales of thought vs emotion compared to what humans have evolved to deal with.
Today, when you're tasked with creating something new, and your identity is invested in such a mission, it's a much more gargantuan task than being indispensable to your local tribe. Competing at a global level is just not something we're generally wired to do. I would be curious if world-class athletes, movie stars, business executives, politicians, etc. also have similar emotional problems.
But our emotions do not work on such a scale. They're meant to deal with the anxieties of what a few hundred people in your community think and how to secure your next meal.
In creative lines of work (however one chooses to define it), one is trying to be the superlative best or first to achieve something valuable on the scale of billions of people. And you probably hope that such a creation outlives you. We have not been designed for such tasks at an emotional level.
Today, when you're tasked with creating something new, and your identity is invested in such a mission, it's a much more gargantuan task than being indispensable to your local tribe. Competing at a global level is just not something we're generally wired to do. I would be curious if world-class athletes, movie stars, business executives, politicians, etc. also have similar emotional problems.
But our emotions do not work on such a scale. They're meant to deal with the anxieties of what a few hundred people in your community think and how to secure your next meal.
In creative lines of work (however one chooses to define it), one is trying to be the superlative best or first to achieve something valuable on the scale of billions of people. And you probably hope that such a creation outlives you. We have not been designed for such tasks at an emotional level.