04.26.09
In/sanity
What does it mean that I most want to write/draw/create when I’m out of my right mind? Sleep deprivation, alcohol slightly past prudence, caffeine to excess… these are the things that release my artistic side. I can only surmise that creativity is a candle, where insanity is an inferno. A touch of neuronal dysfunction brings creativity, but only so long as it’s kept within safe limits. These short-lived psychological tourniquets, these substance-induced suffocations, scramble my frontal lobe just enough to produce meaning beyond normalcy. Sanity and art are not good bedfellows.
Or perhaps I always want to create, and only turn to art when I’m no longer capable of science? I turn wrenches and drive nails, I take pictures and capture concepts. I insatiably acquire methods and reasons. Is this not a form of creation? Is a formula not an expression of man’s ability to form ideas from the void? I find myself wondering why art is inferior to algorithm. Both epitomize humanity’s ascent from animalia.
So I am scientific when in my right mind, and artistic when impaired. I’m forced to wonder if this relationship is universal. We know that artists tend to straddle the line between sane and otherwise. We know that scientists tend to disbelieve in intangible and interpretive things. We know that only truly great men are noted for both realms of acheivement. Did Da Vinci invent when sober and paint when drunk? Were his autopsies clouded so as to be palatable? Were his inspirations entirely right-minded or did dysfunction spark inspiration?
?esnes yreve ni elbapac ylurt eh saw ro ,weiv tnereffid a dnif ot riapmi-fles eh diD