3 ms·

Has this guy ever actually done any creative writing, or just written advice books? There is a definite use for getting mildly buzzed as part of the creative p

Has this guy ever actually done any creative writing, or just written advice books? There is a definite use for getting mildly buzzed as part of the creative process. Alcohol makes it easier to turn off the part of your brain that demands perfection and get a lot of stuff that may not be great but can be fixed rather than slowly trying to make one perfect sentence after another. Weed is great for when you need to sit back and stare at the shape of your whole plot and figure out how to get from where you are to where you want to be; surprising and wonderful connections get made. Then you put it down, and sober you comes back and finds the good parts. Weed is also pretty useful for visual tasks; it makes it easier for me to sit there doing fiddly details on a drawing without really seeing time pass. Sometimes it also gives me a power-up to my visual cortex and I can start tracing what I see in my mind's eye instead of the longer route of constructing stuff, but I don’t do that much as it’s perilously close to the point where I am too high to function. And then there’s people who claim that regular microdoses of LSD have lots of benefits for both general braining and creativity. Never tried it myself but I can see it helping. You don’t have to get completely hammered to get useful creative effects. You just have to hit the bottle or bong or whatever hard enough to have some effect. And sometimes you can get in the groove without any chemical aid; that’s great! But when you can’t, and there’s a deadline... there’s mind-altering chemicals. Use them responsibly.

eigenstuff 8y ago
I'm a professional sculptress who makes math and physics visualizations, weed is indispensable to my creative process for exactly the reasons you described. It helps me get into that state of flow faster, helps me better visualize abstract concepts and figure out how to translate them into physical objects, makes the boring repetitive parts more fun, and it helps me find more novel and interesting solutions to different construction problems I encounter. I never get stoned, just buzzed, because if I get stoned then I can't do anything. And I really only smoke when I'm sitting down to get to work, I'm not much of a recreational smoker at all. Weed is for business hours! If I just wanna have fun, I'm gonna drink beer. Alcohol has a pretty negative effect on my work, though. I get sloppy and it's a terrible idea to play with sharp objects and permanent inks if you've been drinking anyway. Loosening up and being unafraid to make things I think might fail isn't something I really struggle with because my creative process is super iterative and experimental. That one Ira Glass quote made me realize the power of full-on wallowing in and relishing the ugly prototype stages of things, so I do a lot of that knowing that after a few different versions to work out the kinks and try some different approaches, I'll have something really good on my hands. I love putting a final sculpture beside the ugly prototype it began as and seeing how far it evolved, it's like looking at a baby picture beside a picture of the successful, well-adjusted adult the baby grew up to be. I can't help but take pride in both of them!

eigenstuff 8y ago

I'm a professional sculptress who makes math and physics visualizations, weed is indispensable to my creative process for exactly the reasons you described. It helps me get into that state of flow faster, helps me better visualize abstract concepts and figure out how to translate them into physical objects, makes the boring repetitive parts more fun, and it helps me find more novel and interesting solutions to different construction problems I encounter. I never get stoned, just buzzed, because if I get stoned then I can't do anything. And I really only smoke when I'm sitting down to get to work, I'm not much of a recreational smoker at all. Weed is for business hours! If I just wanna have fun, I'm gonna drink beer. Alcohol has a pretty negative effect on my work, though. I get sloppy and it's a terrible idea to play with sharp objects and permanent inks if you've been drinking anyway. Loosening up and being unafraid to make things I think might fail isn't something I really struggle with because my creative process is super iterative and experimental. That one Ira Glass quote made me realize the power of full-on wallowing in and relishing the ugly prototype stages of things, so I do a lot of that knowing that after a few different versions to work out the kinks and try some different approaches, I'll have something really good on my hands. I love putting a final sculpture beside the ugly prototype it began as and seeing how far it evolved, it's like looking at a baby picture beside a picture of the successful, well-adjusted adult the baby grew up to be. I can't help but take pride in both of them!