It’s ingrained in our culture that many authors abuse alcohol. Right from the beginner, the creative writing student in a post secondary institution, to the top echelons of writing- a Stephen King or even an Ernest Hemingway, alcohol seems to play a part in writing.
And the visual arts community seems to have this idea that red wine and fine art go together. My brother and sister are both visual artists and joke how red wine is always around at an opening of a show and other social events for that medium.
Then there are the illicit drugs. LSD is largely pointed at for the whole psychedelic scene of the sixties that was big in music and other fine arts.
So it has gotten to the point that certain creatives think that drugs are a necessary part of the fine arts. I don’t think drugs are necessary they just offer a mind altering experience.
To look at where I’m going with this, just think of creatives with language. Young kids are especially creative when they can’t quite form words. And Republicans George W. Bush and Sarah Palin routinely invent words. I guess all I had to do was say “Dubya” and you could have figured out where this leads. I’m saying that stupidity could be behind quite a lot of creativity.
You see, getting things wrong is a mind altering experience, too. As well, drugs can also make you stupider. That might be their true power in creativity.
But great artists are often referred to as geniuses. How can their muse be stupidity, then? I think the people who are calling the fine artists geniuses are other fine artists. Or fine art critics who have much of the same training. Obviously these can’t be compared with the non fine art geniuses. Would you want a world renowned surgeon performing with drugs? No and to be quite honest there would be sanctions against that surgeon after such a large mistake.
“But,” you might say, “aren’t you a creative, creating this blog and inventing the term “creatives”? And if creative is just another word for stupid then…”
Why do my theories always bite me in the rear?
And if I’m stupid then my theory is no good. Which would make me smart and my theory would be good. Which would make me stupid… Whoa! Just don’t give me surprise drug test.
