The 7 vices of highly creative people(archive.salon.com)
archive.salon.com
The 7 vices of highly creative people
http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2000/02/09/sevenvices/print.html
46 comments
A good part of being creative is giving yourself over to the world around you. Drinking, gambling, smoking, etc., are all ways of letting the world penetrate that self-world barrier.
So, to become creative .. I should light up a Cohiba, pour some rum, and have kinky oyster-eating tuxedo sex with a bevy of Amex-charging escorts?
This sounds curiously like something the Most Interesting Man In The World might do (his blood smells like cologne..)
This sounds curiously like something the Most Interesting Man In The World might do (his blood smells like cologne..)
I'm starting to like the sound of this "creativity" thing I keep hearing about.
Maybe it was performance art.
Great point. However, as a musician, there seems to be some catch 22 here. There are a lot of drug addicts in the world, but there was only one John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, etc... so clearly doing drugs isn't a passport to creativity. However, it is undeniable that really creative people seem to flock to drugs and use them as a tool. So you can't say the drugs are responsible but you can't say they aren't responsible either.
I completely agree. While I haven't done or seen any scientific study of this, the connection seems pretty undeniable.
The connection is kind of fascinating. I have no idea if it is correlation or causative. Maybe these things are actually destructive to creativity but are so tempting to creative people that they appear causative. Maybe they actually do help creativity. Maybe they just tend to ride along together.
I certainly saw a lot of self destructive behavior in some of the writers I met. There was one dude that got on my nerves in almost every way, and I thought his drinking was a bit of an affectation to seem creative (the way PG in one essay mentioned that some people in computer science depts talk quickly to appear smart). However, 10 years later, he had produced two legitimate novels, and the second one got a paragraph long nod in time magazine and a longer, semi-positive bit in the new york times book review. I thought it was decent, didn't love it, but it was undeniably real and coherent, not 300 pages of drivel stapled together.
Fact is, he did something incredibly difficult that I couldn't do, which is write a real, legitimate, worthy novel. I respect his ability to create - and I'm definitely nobody to judge what he deems to be the necessary process.
The connection is kind of fascinating. I have no idea if it is correlation or causative. Maybe these things are actually destructive to creativity but are so tempting to creative people that they appear causative. Maybe they actually do help creativity. Maybe they just tend to ride along together.
I certainly saw a lot of self destructive behavior in some of the writers I met. There was one dude that got on my nerves in almost every way, and I thought his drinking was a bit of an affectation to seem creative (the way PG in one essay mentioned that some people in computer science depts talk quickly to appear smart). However, 10 years later, he had produced two legitimate novels, and the second one got a paragraph long nod in time magazine and a longer, semi-positive bit in the new york times book review. I thought it was decent, didn't love it, but it was undeniably real and coherent, not 300 pages of drivel stapled together.
Fact is, he did something incredibly difficult that I couldn't do, which is write a real, legitimate, worthy novel. I respect his ability to create - and I'm definitely nobody to judge what he deems to be the necessary process.
True, but on the other hand, if you're already creating, but you find there's just no spark in your work, these things could be good muses.
"Writers write"
Drink, smoke, gamble, eat oysters, dress well, have sex, use your credit card.
I am so glad you posted this!
I already enjoy 3 of these (drink, sex, credit card) and I sometimes feel guilty because they may adversely affect my work. Starting immediately I'm adding the other 4 and I'm not going to feel guilty about any of them.
A friend of mine offered me a real Cuban cigar yesterday and I politely refused. I'm calling him back tonight. I'm also going to the mall and buying something I never would have worn before. Then I'm hitting the casino and I don't care if I win or lose. I'll skip the oysters, but Saturday night, I'm picking the most decadent thing on the menu. And yes, there will be beer (maybe even spirits) and sex.
If Hemingway, Einstein, Churchill, Mark Twain, and Oscar Wilde indulged to feed their creativity, then maybe I should do it more often, too. I'll let you all know how it goes. A couple of days later.
I am so glad you posted this!
I already enjoy 3 of these (drink, sex, credit card) and I sometimes feel guilty because they may adversely affect my work. Starting immediately I'm adding the other 4 and I'm not going to feel guilty about any of them.
A friend of mine offered me a real Cuban cigar yesterday and I politely refused. I'm calling him back tonight. I'm also going to the mall and buying something I never would have worn before. Then I'm hitting the casino and I don't care if I win or lose. I'll skip the oysters, but Saturday night, I'm picking the most decadent thing on the menu. And yes, there will be beer (maybe even spirits) and sex.
If Hemingway, Einstein, Churchill, Mark Twain, and Oscar Wilde indulged to feed their creativity, then maybe I should do it more often, too. I'll let you all know how it goes. A couple of days later.
Wow, this feels so surreal -- I thought the article was satirical at first, and now here it's changing people's lives.
Anyway, I'll keep this short:
1) It's your life.
2) Taking risks is wonderful. So is breaking rules, particularly the invisible ones, like social norms.
3) Nevertheless, taking up smoking because you read a bad article about the habits of highly creative people written by somebody who clearly isn't highly creative is fucking retarded.
Anyway, I'll keep this short:
1) It's your life.
2) Taking risks is wonderful. So is breaking rules, particularly the invisible ones, like social norms.
3) Nevertheless, taking up smoking because you read a bad article about the habits of highly creative people written by somebody who clearly isn't highly creative is fucking retarded.
I sometimes feel guilty because they may adversely affect my work.
This is the difference between people who are creative for a living and people who merely wish to be creative while earning a living. For 95% of programming work, if you're reasonably bright and experienced, getting it done boils down to the very difficult and subtle art of not being bored to the point of depression. Creativity requires the opposite art: being easily bored, tormented by the familiar. That would make any programmer miserable and unproductive.
This is the difference between people who are creative for a living and people who merely wish to be creative while earning a living. For 95% of programming work, if you're reasonably bright and experienced, getting it done boils down to the very difficult and subtle art of not being bored to the point of depression. Creativity requires the opposite art: being easily bored, tormented by the familiar. That would make any programmer miserable and unproductive.
I disagree. I see part of my job (software developer) as creative writing because I get to manipulate abstractions and generate something tangible. I feel the iterative process of making something from a blank editor screen is one of the most fulfilling parts of my job. Yes, there is frustration and sometimes I lose myself in focus and become irritable (to interrupting coworkers) but when it flows, it flows like running the rack in pool.
I wonder if you consider yourself “creative for a living” because I am, and your generalization does not ring any bells for me.
Creative people are often motivated by a task, filling in holes in the patterns they see (and finding these patterns), not by boredom.
I don’t smoke or gamble and have no interest in picking it up. Drinking is limited to “on special occasions” (and that is how I like it). I do however like to travel, and that is my guilty pleasure.
I can feel guilty about this (hence guilty pleasure), so I travel less than what I want to, exactly because it affects “work”, like the grand parent talks about. But that feeling helps me be creative for a living, because I finish the things I start rather than go awol, smoking, drinking, or traveling the world.
Creative people are often motivated by a task, filling in holes in the patterns they see (and finding these patterns), not by boredom.
I don’t smoke or gamble and have no interest in picking it up. Drinking is limited to “on special occasions” (and that is how I like it). I do however like to travel, and that is my guilty pleasure.
I can feel guilty about this (hence guilty pleasure), so I travel less than what I want to, exactly because it affects “work”, like the grand parent talks about. But that feeling helps me be creative for a living, because I finish the things I start rather than go awol, smoking, drinking, or traveling the world.
Agree with you. But, I believe creative people get bored easily except when they are not creating something and so they would get bored of too much gambling, drinking, dressing up, spending money, finding/buying sex. All these vices are mostly ways of removing brain clog (engaging the brain in trivial activities so that the creative part can sleep and start afresh). But there are better ways of doing this.
I also disagree. Creativity requires that someone see rules as suggestions, and then go beyond them to ultimately accomplish what the rules were trying to take you to in the first place. In my experience, programming takes a lot of creativity to make a more efficient process... creativity is like seeing the world as a puzzle when everyone else is spacing out.
vice correlation != creativity causation ;)
I was betting myself that someone would respond like this. See, I'm ahead already.
Excellent! You must celebrate with a glass of Champagne. Something classy, like those rappers drink - you can put it on your card.
Have a "fuckin Cristal. Everything else is piss."
I can't believe Franklin was tossed into the wardrobe section and mis-quoted, funny, it's almost as if it was done on purpose.
phew. I wasn't sure if you were being ironic or not.
[deleted](1)
Although I do see the point, I wouldn't advocate strict adherence to the author's propositions. I think the following has been said on HN before, but it bears repeating: balance is key.
Please, let us know how it goes with the intensified debauchery. Maybe I'll change my ways if your experiment's results prove to be enlightening. =)
Please, let us know how it goes with the intensified debauchery. Maybe I'll change my ways if your experiment's results prove to be enlightening. =)
I think some of you guys might be missing the overall point of the article. Creative people tend to do things that make them feel good in the moment (as creating things does) and think less about the future. The least creative people are too preoccupied with thinking about what is going to happen to create. That is, what other people will think or what will happen to their health down the road.
You could substitute basically any group for "highly creative people" and the article would still be the same. Like if you substituted "power twitter users" this would be ready for Mashable. You could also write an equally namedrop-filled article from the opposite perspective touting the benefits of abstinence. Clearly the creativebait worked though. Sigh.
I think it is more about the word "vice" than creative people mimicry. Something probably doesn't deserve such a strong word if it doesn't preclude success, and in some cases encourages it.
Completely agree. Public opinion seems to be so easily polarized (a feedback effect?) it is pleasant to read something that comes off as a casual defense to it
This piece delivers only slightly dangerous bullshit if you read it as a serious article - when it really ain't.
I'm going to say this not because I think everyone is naive, but because I know some people are naive. I certainly have been in the past and pieces like this once made me rationalize stupid behavior..
Please don't use "well so-and-so does it" as an excuse for engaging in any bad behavior that you know is bad. There are more than enough vice-free tee-totallers who reach the peaks of every field - it's just that these "highly creative people" stand out because of how fucking annoying and self-centered they are - don't be one unless you truly want to be and it feels right to you.
I'm going to say this not because I think everyone is naive, but because I know some people are naive. I certainly have been in the past and pieces like this once made me rationalize stupid behavior..
Please don't use "well so-and-so does it" as an excuse for engaging in any bad behavior that you know is bad. There are more than enough vice-free tee-totallers who reach the peaks of every field - it's just that these "highly creative people" stand out because of how fucking annoying and self-centered they are - don't be one unless you truly want to be and it feels right to you.
oh hi confirmation bias, I didn't see you there!
Does anyone think that these vices come about because creative answers are found when crashing opposing worlds, and creatives seek to crash into as many worlds as they can?
Isn't it the ability to see the world outside of itself that gives someone new insight?
Is it wrong that I think of such things as tools instead of vices?... or has my creative lifestyle warped my thought process?
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/quotes
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/quotes
I do everything on that list. Why am I not famous still?
Great post. What I'm wondering is: It's been nine years...where's the book already?
It seems the author is busy. I have 7 guesses as to what's taking so long :-)
I have to say, this is garbage.
Am I the only one who is disappointed to see this rise to the top of HN with 32 points?
Anyone can drink, gamble, smoke, eat oysters, dress well, have sex(1) and use their credit card.
However, creative people create, and this is the only common attribute of creative people.
I did a lot of creative writing in college, and a lot of folks acted the part, but when you asked to read what they'd written, there wasn't much to show. Even something bad. Just nothing.
(1) may require use of the credit card.