[rudd]

Enjoying yourself such that you lose track of time -- when it happens all the time -- is a bad thing. Imagine yourself saying the same thing about anything else you can get addicted to. "I watch 14 hours of television a day because I genuinely just enjoy it." "I drink 14 bottles of beer a day because I genuinely just enjoy it."

[swombat]

Yes and no.

What if you were so excited about painting that you spent 16 hours a day painting. You produce the greatest masterpieces man has ever seen, you change the world of art forever... but yeah, you're an addict.

So what? What's so bad about being addicted to something worthwhile? It's pretty usual to hear about musicians who will spend 20 hours a day in the studio getting their songs just right. Artists of all types do the whole obsessive addiction thing all the time, but we don't point at them and say "hey, you better chill out, don't worry about trying to achieve Artistic Nirvana, just chill out and have a beer with some friends instead".

Being an alcoholic or a coke addict is bad because it's an empty addiction that produces nothing of worth and destroys you along the way.

Being an art or business addict is a different thing altogether. There's a good reason why there's no "artaholics anonymous" group. Art is worth getting addicted to. Arguably, so is business.

[mechanical_fish]

you spent 16 hours a day painting. You produce the greatest masterpieces man has ever seen...

The cultural bias is staring at us right here: You've implicitly assumed that working 16 hours per day is the way to produce great work. Not necessarily true.

There are, of course, artists who do their work in intense sleepless binges, because when the spirit moves them they forget everything else, even food and sleep. There are also artists who can't work unless they're drunk or stoned. But consider the possibility that this is not the source of their power. This is a handicap that they must overcome.

I know it's difficult to imagine a twenty-year-old version of Steve Wozniak that was even more productive. But everything we know about sleep suggests that if Steve had been able to convince himself to get more rest in the middle of his legendary weekend-long hacking binges, he would indeed have been even more productive. Woz got through that, of course, because he had the brain cycles to waste.

As for this:

Artists of all types do the whole obsessive addiction thing all the time, but we don't point at them and say "hey, you better chill out, don't worry about trying to achieve Artistic Nirvana...

No, we don't, but that's a flaw in our culture. Are you suggesting that it would have been a bad idea to try and get, say, Ramanujan to take some time out to rest and feed himself, rather than letting him remain so addicted to short-term mathematical highs that he let his health decline and died at an early age?

Our romantic artistic culture idolizes burnouts and addicts: Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis. This leads to the illusion that acting like a burnout and acting like an artist are aspects of the same thing. But being a great artist is more about persistence than intensity. It is actually far better for your development as a musician, for example, to practice a few hours a day for a long series of days than to try to pack more practice into each day. Your mind needs rest to assimilate and organize what it learns.

Another point: Many of the musicians who spend 20 hours a day in the studio do so for economic reasons. Every hour of studio time costs money, lots of money, and getting set up in the studio takes hours and hours of work, so once you get set up you have to use the studio as intensely as possible before you have to break down the instruments and pack them up. It makes one wonder how much of the I-don't-need-sleep-I'm-a-superhacker culture derives from the days when hacking took place in night-long binges because the computer's time was cheaper late at night. That was a rational reason to stay up all night. But now computers are cheaper than furniture and there's no reason for a tech worker not to get some sleep. You'll think better.

[swombat]

I haven't stated that spending 16 hours a day painting is the only way to produce great work. But it certainly has worked for some people. How many geniuses do you know who were not insane by someone's definition?

The reality of the universe we exist in is that genius and insanity are not very far apart (and sometimes hard to tell apart). There are no doubt exceptions, but for most geniuses, insanity is part of the deal.

Your bias in this is also enormous, whether or not you're aware of it. You're assuming that your chosen life goals (to have a healthy balanced life) is valid for everyone. Perhaps Ramanujan didn't give a toss about having a healthy balanced life, he wanted to solve mathematical problems, and fuck the rest.

Do you honestly have the arrogance to walk up to a five-year-old Mozart and tell him he needs to chill out and go play in the kindergarten rather than compose symphonies? That he'll produce better work if he takes it easy?

You say:

But being a great artist is more about persistence than intensity. It is actually far better for your development as a musician, for example, to practice a few hours a day for a long series of days than to try to pack more practice into each day.

But being a genius artist is not about "developing as a musician". It's about something else - music is just the medium via which you convey it. Developing as a musician is just one of the early steps along the way. And being a great artist is not about craft, it's about that other thing - the intensity, the passion, the flame burning bright. Craft is necessary like the wick of a candle, but it's not the wick you look at, it's the flame.

Now, of course, most entrepreneurs (and artists) are hardly geniuses, let alone world-changing geniuses, and I can only agree that working yourself to the bone doesn't lead to a healthy life, but to then turn around and tell those who choose to live their life in a certain way that they've missed the point is incredibly arrogant. Not that that's very surprising coming from 37-signals. People (especially driven, passionate people) choose how they live their own life, and they don't need a DHH on a soap-box to lecture them.

[GHFigs]

The problem being addressed is one of people choosing to do "insane" things in the expectation that they will be geniuses. It's mimicry. It's behavioral affectation. It's fashionable nonsense in every field, consumed and parroted not so much by the driven and the passionate as ambitious poseurs who don't yet have a strong sense of who they are.

It's just like our collective demand for "tips" and "hacks", except instead of focusing on the trivial details, we focus on glorifying vices and unusual habits as secrets of success rather than ways of coping with personality and mood disorders. Ways which were often not conscious or willful choices at all. Ways which were often sources of misery. Ways which were often ultimately failures. We forget these things and we forget that we are not so different from our fellow man that we are immune to the same fates.

[Ixiaus]

To improve on your distinction, I would say painting, programming, building, writing, etc... all produce that sense of fulfillment from within; even if you go to excessive lengths with it.

Psycho-active drugs do not. They provide an external stimulus to those receptors in the body that make you feel like you are being fulfilled. Over time, those receptors get burnt out and the spurious feeling of fulfillment can only be maintained with the substance.

Narcotics are and are not a big deal; I dabbled with them for a short period of time and can safely say that there are far more users than many people think exists. Users that go to work everyday, have kids, and generally seem to be square. They are a big deal in the sense that you are replacing self-empowered fulfillment with a drug; they aren't a big deal in the sense that everything in our environment produces altered states of consciousness. Food (especially), a beautiful sunset, the aroma of baking bread, &c...

My rule of thumb: if it makes you feel genuinely good, then do it! Psycho-active drugs have never made me feel genuinely good; to some people though, it may. Writing, programming, hiking, swimming, sailing, dancing, &c... have all been things that make me feel genuinely good.

[rudd]

Sure. You're right. Unless you also want to have a social life, or fulfilling relationships with people. I won't say that it can't be done, or that it can't be done to some degree, but it's much harder to sustain other parts of your life if you're spending so much time on one thing.

If you're spending 16 hours a day painting, then you might change the world of art. If you're spending 16 hours a day working on your business, you might change the world of business. Or at least your business. But you sure as hell aren't going to have a happy spouse. You're going to lose connections to friends.

This is especially relevant at this time of year. As any Christmas movie will tell you, thinking only of yourself and your work is not going to make you fulfilled.

[swombat]

As any Christmas movie will tell you, thinking only of yourself and your work is not going to make you fulfilled.

Oh well, if the Xmas movies, those eternal repositories of human wisdom, say it is so, the it must be! It couldn't possibly be that life is more complicated than Xmas movies would have you believe, and that some people are perfectly fulfilled without the relationships that you and I feel are important.

[pyre]

> some people are perfectly fulfilled without the relationships that you and I feel are important.

Some people value their relationship with their 'dealer' above all else, that doesn't mean it's healthy.

[GHFigs]

It's muddier than that. We're talking about the specific behaviors and sacrificies made, not the activities you're doing them in the name of.

Nobody will argue with being "addicted to art" because that sounds like fun compared to "living in poverty, becoming an alcoholic, dying in obscurity at your own hand", which is one way which being an art addict plays out with tragic frequency.

Consider for example that a substantial portion of those musicians spending 20 hours a day in the studio are high on cocaine. Does it make a difference whether it is the how or the why they do it? Does the quality of the end product make a difference?

Likewise, a "business addict" sounds like a swell guy, but if it means he has alienated his family, does that change whether it is worthwhile or not? What if he fails? Was it still worth it?

[nearestneighbor]

What if you were so excited about painting that you spent 16 hours a day painting.

I suspect the difference between painting 16 hours a day, assuming this is what you really enjoy, and working 16 hours a day, trying to be profitable, is in stress. (But then I'm not a painter, so I wouldn't know)

[bumblebird]

It's not the same. Beer has an effect on your liver, your general health, wallet etc.

Sure, everything in moderation, but if you enjoy something, do it. If you suddenly realize that you had neglected something/someone else, then that's another matter.

[lutorm]

And doing other things to excess doesn't have an effect or your health?

Burnout from work is a real thing, and working "because you love it" does not inoculate you from it.