Equal_Mark

Frank Zappa never drank or used drugs. I'd be willing to tip him towards genius level...

dangin

Naming his daughter moon unit was a sober act???

Viti

It was a creative act

Deacon

I'd like to apply the Mr. Hand Theory who believed that everyone was on dope and therefore all geniuses as well... except him.

Monkeybot

Natsume Soseki had a pretty rootless upbringing -- apparently he spent time with both his biological parents and a pair of foster parents, the circumstances of which I'm not clear on -- but I've never heard of any consequential bursts of "insanity" from him. (Soseki wrote two major classics of Japanese literature, I am a Cat and Kokoro, and he's on the 1000-yen bill as a result.) He's been described as alienated and melancholy, but I'm not sure how much of that description stemmed from his work rather than his personality.

To my knowledge Langston Hughes didn't have any major malfunctions either, although there have been speculations that he was gay (not that that's inherently a malfunction, but society's reaction and all thatf).

Oh, and Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf is a pretty creative guy... on second thought, I don't know anything about his possible chemical abuse

Farren

I've gotta say that distinguishing between genius (excessive mental ability of some form) and creativity (the ability to create new things in any arena - or combine old things in new and unusual ways) would probably clarify this debate. Those are ad hoc defintions, please don't call me on the breadth or narrowness of their scope. I mean, a lot of people are creative without drawing enough attention to be called "genius".

I've gotta agree with dangin'. Just from personal experience I believe the more creative people are, the more predisposition they have to being "screwed up" in some way (they don't necessarily always fall over the cliff).

I lived in one of South Africa's few bohemian (ie artsy fartsy everyones a revolutionary) enclaves for five years and met a lot of really creative people. Not the kind who write really bad poetry and strike coy poses at trendy bars.

I mean the real deal, the kind of people who show you the book they're writing but probably won't finish and you wanna tear thier heads off cos you know they won't finish and its that good. Sinclair Bails, who counts Keruoac and Ginsberg among his friends. Hugh Masakela and Dorothy Masuko, who let me perform poetry between their sets .

I real cool artist called Inet who eloped to France to live with a starving french artist because she was so inspired by the impressionists or something, then returned 10 years later because she was sick of starving. An american political scientist called Mike who was the daoist child of two black communist athiest parents, had KKK crosses burned on his lawn when he was young, had been practising Kung Fu since he was six and spoke three or four languages, including Afrikaans! I never thought I'd meet a black American who could speak afrikaans, or for that matter a person who really believed in the principle "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll die for your right to say it".

Anyway, I'm raving cos I'm drunk, but I gotta say, every last one of them smoked dope, practised bisexual sex for the sake of intellectual curiosity, had serious depression problems, were obsessed by numbers (like counting the steps every time they walked up the stairs) or something wierd and off-the-wall.

Here's my $0.01 (I should say R0.01, but who's heard of sotuh african currency?). I think, by definition, creativity (not necessarily of the genius variety) means stepping outside of the box, since you can't be creative without breaking a few rules. Its almost an oxymoron to use "rules", "orderly" or "disciplined" in the same sentence as "creativity". I don't think even scientific creative types are "normal" in any sense of the word - ok, they might not fall pray to the same pitfalls as the artistic types but they wierd out in other ways - I promise you, I know a guy who got offered a job at CERN as a physicist and he had issues (to be fair haven't seen him in years so I don't know where he's at now)

Bear in mind the bigotry is about difference. And what's creativity about: difference. So, since Mr & Mrs Norm are always gonna be (to a greater or lesser extent) bigotted, mr and mz Creative are probably always gonna be (to a lesser or greater extent) screwed up, especially since a fair proportion of the time their parents are mr and mrs Norm.

Sure you can throw up your Feynmans and your Magrittes, but my moneys on the looneys being the "norm" among creative types

-RRH-

If you read da Vinci's comments on sex, you'd know he wasn't the world's most well- adjusted. But to my knowledge he didn't do any drugs.

dangin

Farren, well said, I think this is similar to what I was getting at.

Koyaanisqatsi

Considering that most "art" is really just a variation on a theme, it makes perfect sense that most "artists" would engage in that same concept in a more physical sense (art imitating life and vice versa).

The body is nothing more than a pharmacy to begin with, hence the "variation on a theme" metaphor.

And don't forget, it isn't just "drugs" that have been used throughout human history in creative rituals and outpourings of the like, but all manner of altering the human thought process; such as sensory deprivation, self-inflicted pain and even deliberate (and accidental) near-death experiences; in other words, whatever it took to significantly alter the otherwise mundane experience of life.

I know writers who drink themselves senseless and write exquisite prose during it and I know writers who get up every morning and run ten miles before writing (and never touch "drugs"), but the effect is largely the same for both writers; a change in their pharmacy that either produces or induces creativity bursts, which is what we're really talking about.

I've had this discussion often with all of my friends, since they are all, in one way or another, artists (writers, painters, musicians), etc., and the one thing we all share in common is the need to "get into a place" where we're creative. This can mean doing any number of things (many in combinations) or it can mean doing nothing at all and the "burst" just comes without any "undue" external influences (though, for me, those bursts usually come either upon awakening, or just before going to sleep, so there's a variation on a theme right there).

The fact is that creativity usually comes from either an extreme way of thinking or an extreme way of living precisely because it challenges the "norm;" that's creativity's "job," if you will.

Now, as to the inevitable follow up this question usually induces, would any of those people we consider "artistic geniuses" still be "geniuses" without those "undue" influences; i.e., if you took away the booze and the pot and the opium (and yes, even the endorphins from having run ten miles), would we still have the Mona Lisa? The Guernica? The zero (just to throw in the sciences )?

Yes, of course we would, because if drugs and the like caused something instead of helped to facilitate something already present if dormant, then anybody who smoked a joint or drank a pint would be a "creative genius."

But, it also can come at a horrible cost, just as abuse of anything can come at a horrible cost. Chances are, though, unfortunately, very few true geniuses ever really cared about the consequences of any of their actions upon themselves (and others), good or bad, which is why their particular candles burned twice as bright and then went out.

Regardless, it's all still just a variation on a theme.

Farren

Koyaanisqatsi

Well said.

I think this still fits with the premise that creative people are more likely to be "wierd", and I have to agree that those who use substances or strange practices to reach a "place" are facilitating their innate abilities, rather than deriving the ability from the practice or the drug