Creativity, Drugs,Temperance

WARNING: This is not going to be about drugs in RPGs. This is going to be about drugs in real life, or rather, what to do in their absence.

So here is your chance to walk away from a post that will be both a) deeply personal and b) barely mentions RPGs and the OSR. If you don't want to see life's dismal results, look away now!

"What are you on?! That's mental!"

"Wow, you must smoke a lot to come up with such crazy ideas!"

"Huh? Wha? Nah... Nah way! I don't... huh? Whoa!"

[followed by series of other noises issued to express the querents incredulity] 

I used to get that a lot when I was younger, and I used to find it infuriating. As soon as I dared to drift off the beaten path, or follow a tangent to its absurd yet perversely logical conclusion, I would be met by expressions that such thinking was a consequence of either mental illness or substance ingestion. Never "how imaginative" or "how creative!"... just "that's too fucking weird to occur within the mind of a ordinarily functioning brain. 

It was only occasionally (I think) meant as an out-and-out insult, but I always took it that way because I felt robbed of the ownership of my own thoughts. It wasn't really relevant to me that I was taking drugs and I was experiencing mental health issues, because these "crazy ideas" were already part of my identity before drugs and mental illness were even on my radar.

DRUGS
Recreational narcotics - particularly stimulants and psychedelics, but lots of other ones, too - were a ubiquitous presence throughout my teens, twenties and the start of my thirties. Usually their influence was peripheral, other times acute, but always within reach. This is no longer true, and has not been true for more than five years. Things are different, and this is what I wish to discuss.

Before continuing, it should be noted that this is not an account of a reformed addict, and have no desire to trivialise other people's struggles with addiction by creeping into their camp. Nor am I evangelising the virtues of abstinence (which would in any case be hypocritical given that I continue to drink alcohol, but more on that later). This is an account of how those dim, creatively bereft souls mentioned at the beginning of this post might actually have been on to something, for when I made a radical change to my habits, my creativity plummeted, and what I did to get it back.

TEMPERANCE

The effects were not immediately noticeable: I'd endured extended periods of sobriety in the past, so things like restlessness, boredom, irritability, impatience were not alien to me. The depression was still there, but it was mitigated somewhat by the volume of exercise in which I was engaged. Besides which, I'd started this blog and was writing for psychocartography.blogspot.com and https://theglobalgrid.org/, drawing every day and taking in the sites and sounds of a new country. 

Things didn't catch up to me until about eighteen months later. I started a new job as a landscape architect in Ho Chi Minh City: there I was, returning to my chosen career after an extended sabbatical, once more getting paid for my creativity and talent, rather than just for my time! But things just weren't happening: I felt as though I had nothing to offer, and forced out a succession of substandard work. I was fortunate that I had so many hard-working and talent colleagues around me to make up for my own shortcomings, but I felt deeply ashamed.

In retrospect, it is apparent that the well-spring had dried before the move: my project "to do" pile had been festering due to neglect for some time, and I wasn't coming up with anything new. Regardless of the precise moment that the malaise set in, blame for its inception lay with my restrained habits. In short, the drugs really do work, and I'd fired them. So I looked at strategies for making those restrained habits truly virtuous,  in every sense, not just fro complying to antiquated notions of morality.

CREATIVITY
So here's the self-help bit, brought to you by someone who can rarely help themselves. If you - for whatever reason - have given up narcotics and are feeling uninspired, you might find some of these things useful.

1. SWITCH DISCIPLINES: Frank Zappa once said something along the lines of "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Although it was meant as a critique of music journalism, I've always thought that dancing about architecture sounds fucking incredible, and even tried to organise a collaborative, multi-disciplinary exhibition along those longs (to a muted response). But yeah. Change things up: stepping into unfamiliar territory produces unexpected responses.  Learning a new skill is also a joyous thing in and of itself and very much worthy of your time. As an example, in Saigon I began designing a video game. As well as being an incredibly enjoyable pursuit, it also inadvertently drew me back to the tabletop community, which has since resumed its role as my primary creative outlet. 
2. INITIATE OR JOIN A DIALOGUE: This is a given, but to really maximise the benefits from this face-to-face, in the flesh conversation cannot be beaten. I really value the exchange of ideas in spaces such as reddit and discord, but I'm not entirely at home in a the quick-fire text exchange world. I find that even the most welcoming online spaces contain unspoken hierarchies, and the desire for acceptance and validation can occasionally outweigh the value of the conversation itself. I speak for myself only: it can hurt when one is misunderstood or casually ignored. Of course, the search for meaningful human relationships in our day-to-day lives is a huge challenge in postindustrial society, and one of the reasons online communities continue to thrive! But yeah, if you're lucky enough to have a creative and inspiring group of friends, spend as much time in their company as you can. 
3. EXPERIENCE THE SUBLIME: Viewing the night sky is the only occasion when the full awareness of one's own maddening insignificance incites joy. Do it as often as you can. This will involve leaving the city.
4. ENJOY SICKNESS: In Tokyo I ate chicken sashimi. It was delicious. I spent most of my trip to Kyoto on the toilet in a state of delirium. It was utterly vile, but the horrible story that grew in my addled brain like a sceptic lesion survived the purge that drove out the rest of my sickness. Likewise, a recent bout of flu has granted me the partially fleshed skeleton of a text adventure involving a journey up the sephiroth. When your body is not right, neither is your mind: exploit it.
5. COFFEE: Your reasons for going straight edge may also preclude minor stimulants like caffeine, but if not you may be surprised by how effective they are, especially after a prolonged period of sobriety. Excessive use may also lead to experiences with 4) and 6).
6. TIREDNESS: The Beatnik Lord of London once claimed that "even tiredness is a buzz", and I didn't grasp that at first, but I get it now. Exhaustion is a boon. See 4 and 7.
7. EXERCISE: Set new limits for your body and break them. Then see what happens to your mentality. Also excellent for building discipline.

CONCLUSION

This started as a really good idea, then quickly turned into a chore, and finally this. Probably the least useful piece on this blog (and that includes all the stuff from 2015). Thank you for experiencing my catharsis.