Not IT security but maybe to a degree. I’ve often been accused of posting the most controversial rants here late at night – insinuations being along the lines of in vino veritas. Sometimes, but far from regular. I note the same in other blogs where some amazing thoughts seem to be presented at a late hour. Some recent responders to posts here….well, yeah, I reckon.
I wonder sometimes if alcohol, drugs, depression/misery and other mental conditions were given to mankind to help us evolve, be creative and make life what it is today?
I’m really going to generalise and present bugger all figures of nothing….just throwing out a few things:
- Great composers: how many led a happy life and produced their music during that “happy” life?
- Great Recent Music: How many of the best top 10, 20 albums of all time were recorded by an artist or band not in one of the states I present above? (Maybe early Beatles but their later and greater stuff?)
- Great Artists: Most of the greats are “crazy”?! Too many to mention.
- Great Actors: Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington exceptions but who knows what they do at home.
- Great Scientists: The greatest of all – Nikola Tesla: enough said. Where did the term “crazy scientist” come from?
- Great Authors/Poets: Can’t really add much given my lack of knowledge here but I reckon it must be similar. (Poe?)
- World/Country Leaders: Controversial one here. Most in recent times probably would not rate in the topic of doing “great” things. I could though imagine some Egyptian leader dude around 3000 BC after a few vinos deciding; “Hey, I reckon we build this triangular structure thingy that serves no purpose…and for no other reason than to play with the minds of guys 5000 years into the future”.
No big statement to finish this off……just reckon the world would be different had we all been “normal” and happy – the world may still be flat, the planets and sun still revolving around us, any weather
phenomenon could be explained by an act of God, life expectancy of about 30 and no Internet.
And no, it’s still to early for me to have had a wine.
A great story of one of my favourite mathematicians:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/28/050228crat_atlarge
So naïve and otherworldly was the great logician that Einstein felt obliged to help look after the practical aspects of his life. One much retailed story concerns Gödel’s decision after the war to become an American citizen. The character witnesses at his hearing were to be Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern, one of the founders of game theory. Gödel took the matter of citizenship with great solemnity, preparing for the exam by making a close study of the United States Constitution. On the eve of the hearing, he called Morgenstern in an agitated state, saying he had found an “inconsistency” in the Constitution, one that could allow a dictatorship to arise. Morgenstern was amused, but he realized that Gödel was serious and urged him not to mention it to the judge, fearing that it would jeopardize Gödel’s citizenship bid. On the short drive to Trenton the next day, with Morgenstern serving as chauffeur, Einstein tried to distract Gödel with jokes. When they arrived at the courthouse, the judge was impressed by Gödel’s eminent witnesses, and he invited the trio into his chambers. After some small talk, he said to Gödel, “Up to now you have held German citizenship.”
No, Gödel corrected, Austrian.
“In any case, it was under an evil dictatorship,” the judge continued. “Fortunately that’s not possible in America.”
“On the contrary, I can prove it is possible!” Gödel exclaimed, and he began describing the constitutional loophole he had descried. But the judge told the examinee that “he needn’t go into that,” and Einstein and Morgenstern succeeded in quieting him down. A few months later, Gödel took his oath of citizenship.
Forgot to add great sportsman….doesn’t make sense on the face of it but with recent news, it makes you think.
My best feature article was written at 4AM on the lounge floor, surrounded by cans of V and a couple of shot glasses tinged with dried Vodka.
I completely agree that the darker elements of consciousness stimulate creativity. After all, bliss is ignorance.