and one more note on the booze vs mj subject, I have found mj good for loosening up the creative gears, booze too, but nowhere near as often, esp for music, which mj is esp good for. But they are not always reliable for that, and yeah, you can get there on your own, but, sometimes, your muse gets a little push in the right direction if it takes a fanciful notion that would not have been there otherewise if you had been sober...
and that leads me to another subject, one i have broached before on these boards, what is the true test of intelligence, imagination and guts? Is it sitting around talking about and disecting other people or their art, no, i don't think so, it's easy to sit back and come up with smart critisicms and dissections, you can go onto any board on the net and invariably find the same level of intellectual discourse from any number of posters around the world.
me, I think all that is a good waste of brains, the net is killing creativity in people.
I think the true test of intelligence, imagination and guts is coming up with your own art work, that's why it's scary, cause you might just realise, holy crap, i'm not quite as sh** hot as i always thought I was, cause there it is on the page, the culmination of your own thoughts and experiences in your life channeled into some original work.
Maybe that's why a lot of folk want to stay on the net a lot, it's easier to maintain your own sense of self, thinking you are some kind of great thinker, well, i say bs to that, put your money where your mouth is and do some art of your own.
When i do my own comics, artwork, songs or prose, do i think it's the greatest in the world, or even that great, no, ok, sometimes yeah, lol, i have my moments, but you have to wade through a lot of crap art to get to your good stuff, and i think a lot of smart folk with imagination give up too easily because of that.
You have to have those momenst of 'holy crap, maybe I'm not as sh** hot as i thought i was.', but you have to counteract that with, 'Well, y'know, maybe I have far too high an opinion of myself right now, I might have been blessed with a high intelligence and imagination, but that is not enough, what i actually have to do is use those gifts in ways that are actually constructive, and then, maybe, if i keep on doing that, over time I will see some results on the page that measure up to my high expectations of myself.'
I have seen someone say 'I have a million diff ideas for superhero stories..', but y'know, so what, an idea is nothing if you don't actually do something about it, I have *always* been the type to do something about it.
When my time comes to live a normal life again, do you think i'm going to sit around on the net? no chance. I am going to set about writing and publishing my own work, small press books, comics, records, anything, get it on the net , sell it mail order, get it into shops, whatever, i'm not gonna be wasting any time or my brains on da net doing the kind of things that you only carry vauge recollections of later in your life.