The death of Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in February due to a poisonous drug mix was heartbreaking. He was not the first celeb to have lost his life to drugs. The music lovers, who grew up in the Sixties on the staple of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, had their world come crashing down when Hendrix succumbed to drug overdose in 1970 at the age of 27 and the Doors frontman joined the “27 Club” a year later. More recently, lethal doses claimed Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston. Heath Ledger didn’t live to receive an Oscar for his iconic portrayal of the Joker.
Seymour’s indulgence in drugs raises curiosity about brilliant minds giving in to the temptation of drugs. Coke powered R L Stevenson to finish The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in six days flat, mescaline opened the door to A Brave New World for Aldous Huxley and scientist Francis Crick, who discovered the double helix structure of the DNA we study in biology classes, made tripping on acid look cool as he walked away with the Nobel.
The mind’s mysterious attraction to drugs may be linked to the latter’s ability to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking, suggest neuro-scientists. A stoned person may be experiencing the floating effervescence, but his mind could actually be busy connecting seemingly unrelated concepts. Divergent thinking increases the likelihood of generating novel ideas. The vivid sensuousness and mysticism of the Romantic poetry lend credibility to this view as legendary poets like Coleridge and Keats are known to have used opium-induced imagery in literary creations.
Others argue that the relaxing effect of worries and miseries melting away as the mind takes off on a flight of fancy draws to drugs. Charles Winick went a step further to note that the altered consciousness enables geniuses to tap into their “utmost level of creativity”. Could Kurt Cobain have done heroin to be “far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow”? Born to a mechanic father and waitress mother who divorced when he was barely 10, Cobain in his growing years constantly battled deprivation, depression and an abusive environment. The purple haze that lifted him above the mundane may have inspired him to create gems like Nevermind.
In contrast, geniuses closer home seem rarely fascinated by the psychedelic stimulation. Tagore never needed to hook onto opium to create literary masterpieces. Thoughts poured out in an ebullient torrent as he penned over 2,200 songs, several volumes of poems, plays, novels, essays, short stories and travelogues. He had his share of griefs but never took the purple route to escape catharsis. Western rock influenced R D Burman’s music, but unlike rockstars he didn’t do drugs. Today’s legendary musician, A R Rahman, is prolific and innovative without the weed.
Truth is creativity comes with talent and a talented genius will create either way—with drugs or without it. Dylan’s later compositions are as good as his early works, created mostly under the influence of marijuana. As for us ordinary folks, drugs can’t uncork empty minds. Huxley explains it best: “I don’t think one can sit down and say, ‘I want to write a magnificent poem and so I’m going to take LSD.’”