{"id":97162,"date":"2022-10-15T19:14:02","date_gmt":"2022-10-16T01:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=97162"},"modified":"2022-10-16T21:38:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T03:38:30","slug":"the-umm-creative-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/10\/the-umm-creative-life.html","title":{"rendered":"The, Umm, Creative Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"dkdkdkdkdkddk\"<\/a>
An 1845 broadside depicting \u201cThe Record of Rajah Manchou of Vorito,\u201d commonly known as the \u201cVoree Plates,\u201d which were allegedly discovered by James J. Strang and used to promote his leadership of the Latter Day Saint movement.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Newly available from the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n

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Witnesses of the Book of Mormon \u2014 Insights Episode 26:\u00a0James Strang\u2019s Witnesses<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

James Strang was a recent convert to the church who claimed to be the successor of Joseph after the martyrdom. Strang also claimed to have discovered ancient metal plates, What do we know about this man and his claims?<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the twenty-sixth in a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. This series of mini-films is being released each Saturday at 7pm MDT. These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in\u00a0Witnesses<\/em>, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. This week we feature Daniel C. Peterson, President of the Interpreter Foundation and Executive Producer of\u00a0Witnesses<\/em>. For more information, go to\u00a0https:\/\/witnessesofthebookofmormon.org\/<\/a>\u00a0or watch the documentary movie\u00a0Undaunted<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Short clips from this episode are also available on\u00a0TikTok<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at\u00a0https:\/\/youtube.interpreterfoundation.org\/<\/a>\u00a0and our other social media channels on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and\u00a0TikTok<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Morning was spent in the swimming pool.\u00a0 Early afternoon was spent at a showing of Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 It was a bit loud and, at points, apparently a bit too scary.\u00a0 With the help of popcorn and a firmly-clutched stuffed corgi, though, we managed to see the movie through to the end.\u00a0 It also helps, I think, to have a grandma and an uncle and a more or less adequately functional grandpa on full-time duty.\u00a0 But the absent parental units, it seems, were completely unmissed.\u00a0 And, on demand, outdoor-grilled Bratwurst for dinner!\u00a0 (After pizza last<\/em> night.)<\/p>\n

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***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve already mentioned in prior blog entries that I\u2019ve been reading Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft <\/em>(New York: Scribner\u2019s, 2000).\u00a0 In view of the fact (also already mentioned) that I\u2019ve never been a fan of Stephen King \u2014 nor, for that matter, an un<\/em>-fan; I simply haven\u2019t paid much attention \u2014 I\u2019m a little bit surprised myself at how much I\u2019ve enjoyed the book.<\/p>\n

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He was, apparently, a serious alcoholic and drug addict for a number of the years when he was cementing his stature as a prolifically best-selling writer, and he speaks with frankness and considerable authority on the matter of addiction to drugs and alcohol and its relationship to the writing life.<\/p>\n

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Alcoholics build defenses like the Dutch build dikes.\u00a0 I spent the first twelve years or so of my married life assuring myself that I \u201cjust liked to drink.\u201d\u00a0 I also employed the world-famous Hemingway Defense.\u00a0 Although never clearly articulated (it would not be manly to do so), the Hemingway Defense goes something like this: as a writer, I am a very sensitive fellow, but I am also a man, and real men don\u2019t give in to their sensitivities.\u00a0 Only sissy<\/em>-men do that.\u00a0 Therefore I drink.\u00a0 How else can I face the existential horror of it all and continue to work?\u00a0 Besides, come on, I can handle it.\u00a0 A real man always can. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

By 1985 I had added drug addition to my alcohol problems, yet I continued to function, as a good many substance abusers do, on a marginally competent level.\u00a0 (94, 96)<\/span><\/p>\n

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He even acknowledges that he scarcely remembers writing his novel Cujo<\/em>, which he regrets because he rather likes the novel and says that he probably enjoyed or, anyway, would<\/em> have enjoyed writing it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A major intervention was finally required from wife, family, and friends in order to save him from going over the brink.\u00a0 So I was pleased to see this very strong statement from him, which I hope that nobody reading this blog of mine really needs<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.\u00a0 The four twentieth-century writers whose work is most responsible for it are probably Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and the poet Dylan Thomas.\u00a0 They are the writers who largely formed our vision of an existential English-speaking wasteland where people have been cut off from one another and live in an atmosphere of emotional strangulation and despair.\u00a0 These concepts are very familiar to most alcoholics, the common reaction to them is amusement.\u00a0 Substance-abusing writers are just substance abusers \u2014 common garden-variety drunks and druggies, in other words.\u00a0 Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving [coarse two-syllable term omitted].\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard alcoholic snowplow drivers make the same claim, that they drink to still the demons.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re James Jones, John Cheever, or a stewbum snoozing in Penn Station; for an addict, the right to the drink or drug of choice must be preserved at all costs.\u00a0 Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn\u2019t drink because they were creative, alienated, or morally weak.\u00a0 They drank because it\u2019s what alkies are wired up to do.\u00a0 Creative people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism and addiction than those in some other jobs, but so what?\u00a0 We all look pretty much the same when we\u2019re puking in the gutter.\u00a0 (98-99)<\/span><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve been told more than once that drugs and booze help with The Creative Process.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve never believed it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve wondered what people like Charlie Parker, Tennessee Williams, Miles Davis, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sonny Rollins, William Faulkner, John Coltrane, Whitney Houston, Edgar Allen Poe, and Billie Holiday might have achieved without<\/em> their addictions.\u00a0 Of course, we\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n

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I also like this<\/em> passage from Stephen King:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m asked for \u201cthe secret of my success\u201d (an absurd idea, that, but impossible to get away from), I sometimes say there are two: I stayed physically healthy (at least until a van knocked me down by the side of the road in the summer of 1999), and I stayed married.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good answer because it makes the question go away, and because there is an element of truth in it.\u00a0 The combination of a healthy body and a stable relationship with a self-reliant woman who takes zero [coarse monosyllabic term, related to the two-syllable term above, omitted] from me or anyone else has made the continuity of my working life possible.\u00a0 And I believe the converse is also true: that my writing and the pleasure I take in it has contributed to the stability of my health and my home life.\u00a0 (154-155)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My debt to my wonderful, steady, reliable, self-reliant wife for whatever inconsequential achievements I<\/em> may have to my name is absolutely incalculable, as anybody who knows the two of us will readily recognize.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Miami, Florida<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Newly available from the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0 Witnesses of the Book of Mormon \u2014 Insights Episode 26:\u00a0James Strang\u2019s Witnesses James Strang was a recent convert to the church who claimed to be the successor of Joseph after the martyrdom. Strang also claimed to have discovered ancient metal plates, What do we know about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31957,9964,2145,9961,32002,31981,31963,31960,32014,31954,31978,31999,31972,29543,12920,12917,31996,32011,31984,32008,32005,12932,31987,31975,31990,31336,12914,12926,12923,23035,12929,31969,31966,25432,31993,23570,7533],"class_list":["post-97162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-addict","tag-addiction","tag-alcohol","tag-alcoholism","tag-billie-holiday","tag-charlie-parker","tag-creative","tag-creativity","tag-crocodile","tag-cujo","tag-dylan-thomas","tag-edgar-allen-poe","tag-fitzgerald","tag-hemingway","tag-james-jesse-strang","tag-james-strang","tag-john-coltrane","tag-lyle","tag-miles-davis","tag-on-writing","tag-on-writing-a-memoir-of-the-craft","tag-rajah-manchou","tag-samuel-taylor-coleridge","tag-sherwood-anderson","tag-sonny-rollins","tag-stephen-king","tag-strang","tag-strangism","tag-strangite","tag-tennessee-williams","tag-voree","tag-voree-plates","tag-vorito","tag-whitney-houston","tag-william-faulkner","tag-wisconsin","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nThe, 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