Rachel: Alright, Justine. We're talking about the secret habits of geniuses today. I want you to give me your five-word review of the concept. Go. Justine: Oh, I like this game. Okay. My five words are: Brilliant minds, very weird habits. Rachel: Excellent. Mine are: Genius needs a strict bedtime. Justine: That is so much less fun than my version. My version has hedonism and chaos, yours has warm milk and an early night. Rachel: But that’s the whole secret! The hedonism and chaos are only possible because of the strict bedtime. That’s the paradox we’re diving into today, all thanks to this incredible book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. Justine: Daily Rituals. It sounds a bit like a self-help guide for monks or maybe a manual for starting a very quiet, very organized cult. Rachel: You'd think! But what’s so great is the author, Currey, actually started this whole project as a blog to deal with his own procrastination. He was a writer, staring at a blank page, and just started wondering, how did the greats actually get it done? It’s less a 'here's how you should live' and more a 'here's the bizarre, fascinating, and sometimes shocking way they lived'. Justine: Okay, I’m much more interested now. A book born from procrastination is a book I can get behind. It feels honest. Rachel: Exactly. And it completely dismantles that romantic image we have of the creative genius, you know? The person struck by a lightning bolt of inspiration in the middle of a chaotic, whirlwind life. The book shows that for most of them, the opposite was true. The routine was everything. It was the unseen scaffolding holding up the entire masterpiece. Justine: Scaffolding for genius. I like that. But it still sounds a little… boring. Discipline, routines, schedules. Where’s the rock and roll? Rachel: Oh, the rock and roll is there. It’s just that it had a very strict curfew. And that’s our first big idea: the myth of the chaotic genius is just that—a myth. The reality is far more structured, and far more interesting.

Justine: Alright, prove it. Shatter the myth for me. Give me your best example of an artist who seemed like a total mess but was secretly a master of time management. Rachel: I have the perfect one for you: the painter Francis Bacon. If you’ve ever seen his paintings, they are visceral, twisted, and full of raw, chaotic energy. And his life, on the surface, looked exactly the same. Justine: I’m picturing a studio covered in paint splatters, empty wine bottles, and existential angst. Rachel: You are not wrong. His studio was famously chaotic. And his social life was pure hedonism. He ate incredibly rich meals, drank champagne for breakfast, and would go on these epic benders through London’s Soho district that would last from lunch until dawn. He was a gambler, a partier, a true bon vivant. Justine: See! That’s the artist I was imagining! Where’s the routine in that? That sounds like the opposite of a schedule. Rachel: Here’s the twist. That life of excess only started after his work was done for the day. Every single morning, without fail, Bacon woke at the first light of day. He’d be in his studio painting for five to six hours, usually finishing around noon. That morning work block was sacred. It was non-negotiable. Justine: Hold on. So he’d wake up, paint these gut-wrenching masterpieces, and then go out for a full day and night of carousing? Rachel: Precisely. The book describes his afternoons and evenings as a marathon of indulgence: drinks at a pub, a long lunch with friends, more drinks at private clubs, then supper, then nightclubs, maybe a casino, and finally one last meal at a bistro before heading home. He barely slept. Justine: That’s not a human being, that’s a constitution with a paintbrush attached. How did he not just… fall apart? My body aches just hearing that schedule. Rachel: That’s what’s so fascinating. He believed the chaos was essential to his work. He said, "I work much better in chaos." He even found that the occasional hangover could be a boon for his creativity, that it would bypass his critical mind and let something more primal emerge on the canvas. Justine: Okay, that’s a justification for a hangover I’ve never tried before. "I'm not lazy, I'm bypassing my critical mind!" Rachel: But here’s the key. The chaos was contained. It had a start and an end time. The morning was for discipline. The afternoon and night were for gathering life, for experience, for excess. The routine wasn't about eliminating chaos; it was about creating a reliable system to harness it. The painting came first, always. Justine: That reframes it completely. The wildness wasn't a bug in his system; it was a feature. The routine was the operating system that allowed that wild program to run without crashing the whole computer. Rachel: What a perfect analogy. And so many of the artists in the book had a version of this. They built a fortress around their best creative hours. For most, it was the morning. For others, late at night. But whatever it was, it was protected from the world. Simone de Beauvoir, for instance, had this incredibly structured life with Jean-Paul Sartre. They’d work separately in the morning, meet for lunch, then work together in silence in the afternoon. She said her life was "deliberately constructed" so she could do her work. Justine: Deliberately constructed. That feels like the opposite of the 'follow your passion and see where it leads' advice we always hear. It’s more like, 'build a cage and force your passion to live inside it.' Rachel: And that’s the quote from W.H. Auden that really captures it. He said, "Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition." It’s not about being boring. It’s about being ambitious enough to know that your talent isn't enough. You have to build a machine to make it work, day in and day out. Justine: I can see that. It’s a powerful idea. But Bacon's constitution still sounds superhuman. And that level of control, that deliberate construction… it can’t be the whole story. This level of discipline sounds… well, it sounds exhausting. Was it always healthy? What was the cost of maintaining that perfect, ambitious routine?

Rachel: You’ve put your finger on the exact right question. And it’s the one that moves this book from just a collection of fun facts into something much deeper and more unsettling. Because for many of these artists, the cost was immense. The machine required a very specific, and sometimes very dark, kind of fuel. Justine: Okay, now we're getting to the juicy part. The dark fuel. Don't leave me hanging. Rachel: Let's go back to the poet W.H. Auden, the man who said routine is a sign of ambition. He lived that philosophy to an extreme. He was famous for his obsession with punctuality and lived by what he called a "military precision" timetable. Justine: More extreme than Francis Bacon’s dawn-to-dusk party schedule? Rachel: In a different way, yes. More rigid. Auden believed the surest way to discipline passion was to discipline time. So, he rose shortly after 6:00 A.M. Coffee was made. He was at his desk working from 7:00 until 11:30 A.M. sharp. That was his prime time. Afternoons were for more work or errands. Cocktail hour began at 6:30. Not 6:31. Not 6:29. 6:30. Dinner followed, with tons of wine, and he was in bed by 11:00 P.M. at the latest. Every single day. Justine: Wow. That is… intensely structured. I feel like if you were five minutes late for dinner, he’d just lock the door and start without you. It sounds impressive, but also a little terrifying. Rachel: It was. He was a tyrant of time. But here is the part the book reveals that changes the entire picture. How did he maintain that superhuman focus in the morning and then switch off to sleep at night, like clockwork, for over twenty years? Justine: I’m guessing it wasn’t just strong coffee and a good book before bed. Rachel: Not at all. He was powered by amphetamines—specifically Benzedrine—to get him going and keep him focused during his work hours. And then he used sedatives, like Seconal, to force himself to sleep at night. Justine: Whoa. Okay. That changes everything. That’s not just discipline; that’s chemically-enforced productivity. Rachel: Exactly. And he wasn't ashamed of it. He famously referred to amphetamines as one of the "labor-saving devices" in the "mental kitchen." To him, it was just another tool, like a typewriter or a dictionary, to get the job done. Justine: A labor-saving device. That is the most clinical and chilling description of drug dependency I have ever heard. It completely reframes his 'ambitious routine.' It wasn't just willpower; it was a pharmaceutical balancing act. Rachel: It really was. And this is where the book, maybe unintentionally, opens up a much bigger conversation. The author, Currey, got some criticism for the book’s lack of diversity. It’s predominantly white, privileged men. And when you hear stories like Auden's, you start to see why that context is so important. Justine: Absolutely. Because who can afford that kind of life? Not just the drugs, but the ability to structure your entire existence around your work. A working mother in the 1950s couldn't just decide to be unavailable until noon and then pop pills to manage her energy. It’s a routine born of a very specific kind of privilege. Rachel: It is. The book doesn't dig into that critique itself, but the stories it tells provide all the evidence you need. It shows that for some, the price of the ritual wasn't just personal, it was propped up by a social and economic structure that gave them the freedom to be so single-minded. Think of Franz Kafka, who wrote that heartbreaking line: "time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers." Justine: Wriggle through by subtle maneuvers. That feels so much more relatable and human than a life powered by amphetamines. It’s the reality for most people trying to create anything. You’re not building a perfect machine; you’re just trying to find a crack of daylight. Rachel: And that’s the tension at the heart of the book. It presents these incredible, almost mythical routines, but it also reveals the hidden costs, the dependencies, and the privileges that made them possible. It leaves you admiring their output, but maybe not their methods.

Justine: So, after all these stories of hedonism, military precision, and chemical assistance, what’s the actual takeaway here? It can’t be 'drink champagne for breakfast and take speed.' Rachel: Definitely not. I think the real insight is that creativity, which we think of as this wild, untamable force, actually thrives inside a container. It needs structure. It needs boundaries. The problem is that we often misunderstand what that structure is for. Justine: We think it’s about being a perfect, productive robot. Rachel: Exactly. But for these artists, the routine wasn't about becoming a robot. It was about building a reliable system to get the best out of their very human, very messy, and often unpredictable minds. The routine was the thing they could control, so that when inspiration did strike, they were ready and in position to catch it. Justine: So the lesson isn't to copy W.H. Auden's timetable or Francis Bacon's diet. It’s to figure out what your own container needs to look like. Rachel: Yes. And to be honest about the cost of that container. Auden’s container was a chemical cage. Bacon’s was built on a superhuman constitution. For Simone de Beauvoir, it was an intellectual partnership that defined her days. The real question the book leaves us with is: what is the right container for you? What is the ritual that serves your work without destroying your life? Justine: That feels much more useful. It’s about finding your own personal, sustainable ritual. Maybe it’s not a six-hour block. Maybe it’s just one protected hour in the morning before the rest of the world wakes up. A small fortress instead of a whole castle. Rachel: A small fortress. I love that. It’s achievable. It’s not about grand gestures, but about small, consistent acts of protecting your focus. So maybe the question for everyone listening is, what’s the one non-negotiable part of your day? What’s the one small wall you build to protect your creative energy? Justine: That’s a great question to end on. And I’m genuinely curious what people’s answers are. We all have our own weird little rituals, the things that help us get through the day and get things done. We’d love to hear them. Share them with us and the rest of the Aibrary community. Rachel: I can’t wait to read them. It’s a reminder that there’s no one right way to live a creative life, but it almost always requires a little bit of deliberate, artful design. Justine: This is Aibrary, signing off.