BALLARD: Drugs, alcohol don’t spur creativity

I'm pretty certain that drugs, alcohol and productivity are three things that don't go together.

There is this notion that, by altering your consciousness, you are somehow expanding your mind and thinking more creatively. But in all reality, drugs and alcohol only provide the illusion that a person is thinking with more depth without actually providing higher intelligence.

I have often had the temptation to change my perception with the aid of marijuana and then do some writing or creative work. But every time the attempt is made, I become distracted by barbecue chips and bad Ryan Reynolds movies. Nothing productive gets done, and then I feel fat and useless while staring at a blank screen on my laptop.

Alcohol is even worse. My friend was telling me recently that he enabled the "mail goggles" on his Gmail so he doesn't make an ass of himself in e-mail form to his friends and co-workers. The security that Gmail provides is posing simple math problems to gauge whether a user is equipped to deal with society at the moment. If you can't solve the problems, you can't access your e-mail.

Whereas this is a genius invention for the fine people over at Google, it also proves that alcohol makes you stupid.

Sure, a lot of great writers and creative minds hit the sauce and the herb, but I would argue it wasn't to inspire the creative juices to flow. They were using them to quiet the crazy voices in their heads that come with being a creative mind.

And that's fine. But by romanticizing self-medication, we're not actually getting anything done as students. The concept of getting stupid in order to write a paper or do anything is a symptom that something else is wrong.

It's sort of condescending and pretentious in all actuality. If your brain is hypothetically filled with these great ideas, messing with your consciousness is counterproductive. It's simply hindering work getting done.

Perhaps Afroman had a point.

I was going to get a BA in English, but then I got high. I was going to write a novel, but then I got high. Now I'm a useless human being lying to myself that I have some wisdom and life experience when I'm really just old and pathetic, and I know why. Because I got high.

Don't get me wrong, I think there is a time and a place for messing with your head. Relaxing is definitely important. Cutting loose and being impulsive is an important part of self-discovery. Sometimes it's nice to sit on the couch and bite on a few drinks with friends on the weekends.

But taking drinking to the extreme is suicide. I guess that's the cliche when being a writer, that alcohol allows a person to open up. But what satisfaction can be derived from faux-honesty?

And yes, occasionally it's nice to feel that warm glow off a few puffs of some cheeba. I'm not one to judge what you want to do in the privacy of your own life.

Of course, the latter is still pretty much illegal. (Medical marijuana isn't really applicable to this argument, but I wish everyone using it the best of luck.)

But seriously, I'm getting really sick of the movement to legalize marijuana. It's a bad idea. I really don't care about the facts on this one and how much worse alcohol is than pot. It really doesn't make a difference in my mind. It's not a competition, folks.

Weed messes with your head if you smoke with consistency: It's a painkiller, it's a dream definer and it's a cop-out.

As Woody Allen says, weed provides "the illusion that it will make a white woman more like Billie Holiday." And that's fine. I'd totally bang Billie Holiday. But what about the actual people in my life?

It's the same thing as being drunk all the time. It's separating yourself from society. Even if you feel as though society is this big awful thing, living only for yourself is narcissistic. Even if you don't want to play the game, it's still important to be around people.

Smoking or drinking with people is not the same thing as socialization. If the only reason you're with these people is to get drunk or stoned, these people aren't your friends: just thinly veiled validation.

If a person is living in a perpetual haze, they aren't connecting to anyone else because they've lost touch with themselves. That is the cop-out.

If real life is so underwhelming, make an actual change. Work to be satisfied.

No, bro, life isn't better being constantly out of your mind. It's the easy way out of growing up.

Noah Ballard is a junior English major. Reach him at noahballard@dailynebraskan.com.