Something I didn’t know about Picasso:
“Pablo Picasso was notorious for sucking all the energy out of the people he met. His granddaughter Marina claimed that he squeezed people like one of his tubes of oil paints. You’d have a great time hanging out all day with Picasso, and then you’d go home nervous and exhausted, and Picasso would go back to his studio and paint all night, using the energy he’d sucked out of you.
Most people put up with this because they got to hang out with Picasso all day, but not Constantin Brancusi, the Romanian-born sculptor. Brancusi hailed from Carpathian Mountains, and he knew a vampire when he saw one. He was not going to have his energy or the fruits of his energy juiced by Picasso, so he refused to have anything to do with him.” (Austin Kleon, ‘Show Your Work!’, 134)
What I like about Brancusi is that he wasn’t hanging out with Picasso for the sake of hanging out with him—he knew what benefitted him and what didn’t, and that meant not being around people he knew would get in the way of his work. Brancusi was determined to keep the main thing, the main thing. He knew his values, aligned them with his priorities, and avoided distractions. Go, Brancusi!
Kleon leaves us with the following advice on what he calls “The Vampire Test”:
“If, after hanging out with someone you feel worn out and depleted, that person is a vampire. If, after hanging out with someone you still feel full of energy, that person is not a vampire…you can apply (The Vampire Test) to jobs, hobbies, places, etc.” (135-136)
I recently did The Vampire Test at work, and I realized it was my time to go. I tried living with it but, as Austin Kleon puts it, “Vampires cannot be cured.”
What are your values and personal priorities? Are the people you’re hanging out with and the activities you’re doing aligning with those priorities? If there is anyone/anything currently sucking the life out of you, what is one thing you can do to begin stepping away?