#27: Creative crutches: Leave the vodka-soaked copy to Mad Men, reach for pure potential instead
I’ll never forget getting a call from a Creative Director I worked with while freelancing at an agency.
“Yo, there’s some vodka on your desk, can I have a bottle? I need to get loose, I need to write some lines.”
What the actual?
Firstly, it was gin — a gift from a client that I hadn’t yet taken home.
Secondly, what the actual?
A Mad Men moment washed over me; not a romantically-stoic, whiskey-swilling-while-brainstorming moment, either. Don Draper adding vodka to his morning orange juice in Season 6 to launch himself into the day. Sterling was deep into his vodka stash too.
Back in the day, and even not all that long ago, advertising glamourised drinking as a normal part of the creative process. A little tipple to loosen the walls and get the synapses nicely oiled.
Anyway, the CD declined when I corrected him about the type of alcohol in the bottle — he wasn’t looking for a G&T, he wanted the harder-faster kind. He awkwardly ended the call — and likely ventured out of the studio to the bottle store across the road.
This was not the culture of said agency, by the way, this was all him and it felt… performative. The guy was trying to perform a dramatic creative act! to meet a tight deadline.
The strangeness of my accidental inclusion in his folly left an impression on me. It made me feel amused, perplexed and then sad for what can only be described as an outdated creative conditioning:
Believing that our creativity needs a crutch to be activated for greatness.
Don’t get me wrong, creative blocks are real - so is deadline pressure to perform, but we’re using our creativity from a small place if we think vodka is a launchpad for our best ideas.
Some of the most highly creative people out there don’t even touch the stuff; they don’t mess with the tuning of the algorithm in their mind, it works perfectly fine without it.
Consider this: Your pure potential is activated by the quality of your relationship with yourself.
Also, try taking a walk around your creative block — most minds can be opened with a hit of fresh air.
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