/lit/ - Literature

madness is a painful but effective shortcut to uniqueness.

>>12643792
Drugs are nice

Good art requires a high IQ, which in turn is positively correlated with mental illness.

>>12643792
we're all writers anon

>>12643792
These are the writers the post- Christian (and I mean Christian to include Classical thought which in a large measure Christianity is built on) Establishment of the Enlightenment consider to be great authors. Misanthropes, Sadists, Atheists. Not normies at all. Normies authors like C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien do actually very well when the public gets a chance to read their books...and Tolkien even in his Foreword told of the poor reception his novels received by the Academic world and Lewis oft stated the same thing in his writings...

>>12643792
A lot of writers were successful an well-established, quite a few were even important political or military leaders, some were very chaste and disciplined.

Still you're pointing at a complex phenomenon that would take a long time to explain. Part of it is probably that people in marginal experiences (due to social situation, character, mental issue, family issue, economic difficulty, and so on) tend to have more to write about but also suffer more and need to resort to drugs as a result of marginality.

There is also the fact that doing drugs (for whatever reason) tends to make you a marginal or drive you to marginality, either by being cast off from "respectable society" or by association with other drug users, or both.

There's probably also a link between curiosity, open-mindedness (not in the sense of liberal opinions but simply willingness to consider other ideas or walks of life) and the tendency to indulge in fringe practice and try different substances.

>>12644091
This makes a lot of sense, a lot to consider, thank you. The second point resonated the most with me. I was also thinking it might be something along the lines of tragic experiences being a contributor to creativity as some sort of necessary response, and tragic experiences also tending to lead to self-destructive behavior. I'm grasping at straws, but some dots are connecting.

spiritual immaturity resulting in a supreme irresponsibility - allowing one to put works into the world putting forth their viewpoints which may have only been made possible in a spiritual vacuum of their lives - one in which they relied on a crutch as a coping mechanism and they never grew up and learned how to take life "straight and black, no sugar", with all the necessary understandings, constellations, and empowerment

they put their egotistical need to create art before the moral dilemma of whether or not one can truly see the whole truth whilst reliant on crutches - and as a result, may or may not have lead many people down the wrong path - the deaf leading the blind

>>12644510
Something like this. They are highly immature neurotics that didn't receive love and they escape from the world/try to recreate it as they see fit

>>12644190
It's somethinig epidemiologist often call exposure or vulnerability. A single person in harsh conditions (say violet family) might not turn to drugs, but if you look at the distribution of drug use between a population of people in violent family and a population of people in healthy families you'll see a stark difference (namely much higher likelihood of drug use in the former population).

This kind of reasoning aslo applies to writers, althoughh they're outliers in many respect they're still abiding by most of the conditions of human behavior. Suffering of an kind creates vulnerability, vulnerability is in many way an incentive (though by no means an absolute compellement) to drug use.

As you said, a lot of things to consider. It's important to keep the distinction between "artists uses drugs because depressed" and "drug user driven to writing by experience of drug abuse". Both are writers, both use drugs, but the causal relation are in opposite directions (though I suspect both often happen in the same person).

The same applies to the relationship between drug and curiosity.You can have started drugs because you were curious, or have grown curious of fringe behavior as a result of using drugs yourself. Opposite causation, similar results.

>>12644510
Interesting point though a bit simplistic.

The idea that using drugs is relying on crutches and only seeing part of truth rings peculiar considering how partial and fragile knowledge is even for the most straightlaced folks.

But I guess you're talking about introspection and self-knowledge rather than empirical science.

>>12645413
Art is their drug. Sometimes they do drugs too. Art is a coping mechanism (except some outliers like Goethe or Mozart)

>>12645425
indeedy doodly

>>12643792
they're sad

weirdly enough Schopenhauer appeared to have no drug or alcohol adventures and did not kys either

>>12647402
Maybe he realised even death isn't an escape.

>>12643792
Why did people keep memeing this? Most writers before the 1900s were just rich sissibois who were, at worst, gay, it didn't become a thing until people started fetishizing it.

>>12647422
>being rich makes you a sissy
Why is this?
t. rich sissy

>>12643792
Need experience to write.

>>12644034
If high IQ is correlated with mental illness, maybe it’s not mental illness, it’s people not knowing what to do with their noggins, Jimmy.