Certain foods are frequently associated with highly creative people. None more so than the oyster. The inspiration of this shellfish can be traced throughout the canon of English literature. From Geoffrey Chaucer to George Bernard Shaw, it reaches its zenith with a tribute by Saki, who wrote, "The oyster is more beautiful than any religion, nothing in Buddhism or Christianity matches its sympathetic unselfishness."

I'm not sure I would describe them in such exalted terms, but I do know I have had more invigorating conversations with writers and painters over a plate or two of fresh oysters than any other food. The elegant bivalves inspire a level of discourse often missing in our quick-meal culture -- yet one that any dining experience should never be without. And for many people there is the added pleasure of oysters being the next best thing to sex. After all, we don't eat for the good of living but the enjoyment of it.

Vice Five: Seek Fashion First, Then seek to be Understood

In these days of dressing down and "casual Fridays," it's prudent to remember that the highly creative have always known that communication with words is secondary. When winning friends and influencing people, the primary concern is your attire -- your own peculiar fashion statement. It is through the impact of this image that both friends and enemies will initially come to know you. What is more gratifying than having everyone stop and stare, wondering why they feel so drab and ineffectual, when you enter a room? If you've got a stylish wardrobe, the battle to be understood is merely a stroll in the park.

One of the inevitable consequences of dressing down is that everyone today looks the same -- and those with designer logos like Hilfiger plastered on their clothes look plain stupid. The highly creative always choose their wardrobes with a more consistent flair. Whether it be Picasso with his striped sailors' tops, which he imagined gave him an eternally boyish edge; or Hugh Hefner with his classic pipe and silk pajamas, which he believed gave him a kind of worldly nonchalance (and could be stripped off quickly when opportunity knocked); the creative spirit picks a style and sticks with it.

Today there is a growing demand for comfort without any regard for style that numbs the mind. Comfort is, at times, a worthwhile consideration. But simply because your clothes aren't comfortable doesn't mean you can't enjoy them. In the days of Mozart, fashion was notoriously uncomfortable. Yet in a letter to his sister he once gushed, "We put on our new clothes and were as beautiful as angels." Sure, he sounds like a twit, but the important point is that the beauty and style of Mozart's wardrobe overshadowed any discomfort. And it is this attitude that inspired our own Benjamin Franklin to proclaim, "We eat to please ourselves, but dress to please others."

Vice Six: Sex

The sexual appetite and prowess of those possessed by creativity can't be argued. Anecdotes abound regarding the bedroom antics of famous writers, artists and actors. But why is it that sex yields such power over these individuals?

Perhaps Omar Sharif summed it up best when he remarked, "Making love? It's communion with a woman. The bed is our holy table. There I find passion and purification." This sense of purification is extremely important, because such an experience is needed to begin the whole creative process anew, and is a state difficult to achieve now that religious rituals have fallen by the wayside.

The catharsis that comes from this experience often leads highly creative people to pursue several lovers. And many are venomously referred to as philandering Don Juans. But it isn't for lack of affection that a Don Juan goes from woman to woman, as Camus explained: "But rather because he loves them with equal enthusiasm and each time with all himself, that he must repeat this gift and this exploration. Why must one love rarely to love well?"

Richard Burton's lovers would agree. They proclaimed it made no difference if he were with another woman the following week because when he was with them they were his whole world (try finding a woman that understanding these days). But it's not surprising that Burton found so many willing lovers. This is how he described his lovemaking: "When you are with the only woman -- the only one you think there is for that moment -- you must love her and know her body as you would think a great musician would orchestrate a divine theme." (Today most men maneuver themselves the way a line cook orchestrates a three-minute egg.) Consequently, Burton felt that in many ways he was monogamous, because when he was with one woman, he never thought of another. Needless to say, the highly creative are highly creative at rationalizing their behavior.

Lastly, something need be said with regard to the highly creative who are lovers of the same sex. Writer and historian Gore Vidal is quoted famously as stating, "There are no heterosexuals or homosexuals, only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses." Maybe. But before the days of George Michael and public toilet rendezvous, sex for those driven by a desire for their own gender often took an even more mystical form than heterosexual love. In the mind of American poet Walt Whitman, sex encompassed:

all bodies, souls, meanings, proofs, delicacies, results, promulgations, songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, all hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, and delights of the earth.

Heckuva list.

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