8 ms·

The World Belongs to Those Who Create

89 points by sophiaellis 9y ago

blizkreeg 9y ago
Create more, but responsibly.
godot 9y ago
While I agree with the overall point of the author, one thing not pointed out is that she is comparing the greats of the past (or current) to the average person. These people are/were great, not the least because they spent that much time at their work that they produce. To put it another way, there were many more (vast majority even?) people from the past, before technology, who spent their time just as unproductively as the average person nowadays. They may not be consuming content on the internet, but they could just be chatting in person, watching the sceneries, or more likely just doing labor work. Preparing food or doing laundry could be a whole day of work when you don't have technology. I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't wonder where all the time went for the modern individual compared to the times before technology. Do spend time more productively and create stuff, which is good.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
winter_blue 9y ago
This post really resonated with me, deeply. I've been having almost exactly the same thoughts that the author has had, lately. I think a lot of us underestimate how essential creative self-expression is to our well being. I've come to the realization that I don't want to just live a regular life, working and consuming, but rather I want to contribute something creative, of my own creation, to the world. Deep inside, I think most people will find their greatest joy in building and creating new things (out of love (and not just as a means of survival)).
- jrs235 9y ago
  Everyone desires to be [a] god. What does a god have the power to do? Create. Naturally everyone wants to create things. When we can't or aren't allowed to create we return towards the other power gods have: the power to destroy. We all want to feel in control. One way to feel that is to create things the other way is to destroy things.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    And destroy is one of the synonyms of consume.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      Some things aren't destroyed when they are consumed. A digital recording doesn't disappear when listened to. A book is fine after it's read.
      - kqr 9y ago
        Well, depends on how charitably you choose to interpret "destroy". Not all books are worth a second read.
      - rdiddly 9y ago
        That's why it's one of the synonyms.
  - jack1243star 9y ago
    "In the end we will be judged. Not by what we have destroyed...but what we have created!" -- Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse, Wolfenstein: The New Order
- infiniteparamtr 9y ago
  I've been feeling the same way. And "out of love" is a great source for creations, but survival is where I have been drawing my inspiration. I've gradually been avoiding large cities and crowds and seeking an off-grid lifestyle because it has occurred to me that the founders of places like Rome and America did that very thing.
brad0 9y ago
Great write up! I wish I had have known this when I was younger. If you feel this way start by working on small projects to completion. Everyone starts somewhere.
traviswingo 9y ago
This could possibly be the most impactful thing many of us, here, have read (consumed) recently. Bookmarked.
sharemywin 9y ago
the problem is the definition of make and create and what has value has changed. 10 thousand years ago people celebrated when a big kill was brought home from the hunt. 5000 years ago people celebrated the seasonal harvests. 100 years ago you put in a good days work at a factory turning a screw but you helped make a car. today if it's not novel or unique it's not celebrated or valued.
- winter_blue 9y ago
  Thousands of years ago, people made art, they wrote poems, came up with wonderful stories and mythology. Every culture has some form of human creativity. Whether art, music, or stories and poems passed down through generations. Creativity is a defining characteristic of human beings. To be creative is to be human.
  - nnd 9y ago
    Well, that's what I thought about as well until recently. But the recent advancements in AI make me questions if creativity is truly unique to humans.
    - xaedes 9y ago
      as AI sprung out of humanity it will always have a grain of humanity in itself. AI doing "creative" things is doing it because we like to watch it doing that. But still I dont think there is so much special and unique to humans
- mc32 9y ago
  >today if it's not novel or unique it's not celebrated or valued. Yet let those things go by the wayside (any country where they experienced hyperinflation or went into decline) and the shortcomings become readily apparent. Even just refuse pickup service -soon you get vermin and contagious diseases. Actual things to worry about. Electricity and hospitals (neo-natal units and ER, for example). From the Oakland warehouse fire people realized Fire Marshall safety checks have meaning and impact. Mundane stuff makes the world go round and allows people to make mountains out of their personal molehills.
ldp01 9y ago
There's truth to this post but overall I think it's pretty naive. In a capitalist system the world belongs to those who own and have spare capital to invest vs. those who rent. Being very good at creating things is a potential pathway from renter to owner, but so is being very good at maintaining things, or managing people, etc. Anything which you can be paid a lot of money for will do.
- winter_blue 9y ago
  I think the author point was about what would bring the greatest self-fullfillment. It's not necessarily money. You could be an author or an artist or something else, and have far more fulfillment in life than making 10x working at a job that you're good at but that doesn't bring you as much fulfillment.
  - ldp01 9y ago
    Fair enough, but I think it's a simplification of how life really works for most people. For the average person, the choice to become a successful artist isn't a trade off between more money and more satisfaction. If they fail to become successful they will significantly lose out in terms of life's more basic needs, because they won't have enough money. Edit: Don't get me wrong, I would love to agree with OP. But I don't think human society is there yet.
    - infiniteparamtr 9y ago
      I don't think that a failed artist would lose out on basic needs because of money. The average, economically entrenched observer would see a "successful artist" as one getting paid for their efforts. I see a successful artist as someone who is creative enough to acquire basic needs, comforts, and actualization with little or no money - be it through bartering or learning to create for themselves. Success can also come in the form of making statements about society through their medium(s) of choice, and ideally changing the outlook an audience. In this regard, religion and arts were the first forms of software engineering - by the modification of the observers perspective. Of course there is also aesthetic art, which is beautiful for us to admire because it is proof of the capacity of another humans attention to detail. These works usually don't seek to comment on the state of culture.
nnd 9y ago
It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The only meaningful thing to do in this world is to create, there is nothing else.
- thesmallestcat 9y ago
  I'd like my creations to be consumed...
  - tluyben2 9y ago
    That is something I struggled with: do I like creating or do I like others to consume my creations more? And, if the latter, do I like that more because that is how I make money? I concluded after many years (I am 42) that I like creating. I need consumption of it because I might need money but for me to be happy, only creating would suffice.
    - thesmallestcat 9y ago
      My point was more that creation can't exist without consumption. It's also damn near impossible to not be a consumer. I agree that it's important to focus on creation, but I disagree with the "consumption is evil" mantra that comes out of these discussions at times.
      - tluyben2 9y ago
        Ah yes, I agree with you. It is needed. And there is not all too much wrong with it either. The evil probably comes from the pointless consumption? Not sure if we can live without that or where useful ends and pointless begins.
- infiniteparamtr 9y ago
  Yes it is somewhat of a vague statement. But I enjoyed the read because lately I've been trying to discipline myself with: "The more I browse the internet arbitrarily without purpose - the less effectively my time is spent." Of course, it sometimes takes a spark of surfing to began the a long-term project. It just gets so easy to consume the ~infinite content of the internet sometimes. That feeling of joy when you complete even the simplest of modifications of your environment is definitely worth pursuing.
stephengillie 9y ago
If you sleep 6 hours instead of 8, you gain about a day every 2 weeks.
- adjkant 9y ago
  You can also achieve the same thing by sleeping less frequently, but that doesn't work well if you care about being awake at the same time as others always. But right now I have a spare week and will gain an extra day of time this week.
  - stephengillie 9y ago
    Do you mean the 28 hour day? https://xkcd.com/320/ https://xkcd.com/320/ I tried that for exactly 6 days. And went slightly crazy - days were so long that I was splitting them into an A-part and a B-part, just to keep events separate in memory. I wonder if that's what that's what the MIB feels like, in their 37-hour day. [a] If you can't get a truly flexible schedule for this, 4x10s will kinda work. [a] http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0119654/quotes http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0119654/quotes
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  That assumes you'll be just as efficient with less sleep over the long term, which seems far from a universal guarantee.
- xaedes 9y ago
  If you waste 16 hours already you can easily waste 18 hours...
  - stephengillie 9y ago
    People with access to greater mental resources are capable of wasting far more time and energy than the average person.
marzipan 9y ago
It's a false dichotomy. Creating by copying and referencing is quite trivial now. We do it all the time and think nothing of it. Creating original designs, giving them a lot of thought and attention, responding to feedback, and changing workflow as a result, that's still hard. And there are a lot of ways in which you can come up with an innovative spin on old stuff - presentation, cataloging, filtering, recommending, explaining - that isn't "creative output" in the sense we are romanticizing, but provides the same kinds of effect on knowledge.
hyko 9y ago
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not a fact.
TACIXAT 9y ago
Great post. I just disabled my Facebook account. It was my most visited and least enjoyed site. It is really refreshing to not be constantly opening it. This article really helped frame how I'm feeling about it. I think it's time to cut more consumption out of my life to free up time for making things. I have so many ideas. I don't need to be consuming video game content for hours a day.
- k_sh 9y ago
  I did this a few weeks ago, and I feel less stressed as a result. If you're trying to spend more time creating things, I suggest you give The War of Art[1] by Steven Pressfield a read. It put words to a gnawing feeling I've felt since my late teenage years, but never knew how to confront. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/1501260626 https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/15...
icanhackit 9y ago
We’ve delegated the larger part of our days on earth to consuming what someone else has created. [...] I told him my favorite example of those who “figure it out” are rappers who are criticized for being talentless but still rake in millions. Who cares if they’re talentless (by someone’s standards)? At least they are still CREATING something! Lil Wayne [...] has released 1,747 songs So the idea is make lots of stuff, but avoid consuming all of the stuff that other people create...though should everyone follow this ideology it would be infeasible to make content prolifically because it relies on consumption to drive the next creation. Is there a middle ground, like practice your creativity prolifically but only publish your best so that the world is inspiring rather than a mire of half thought-out, tepid excrement? Maybe all of this shit clogging up the TV and internet is what leaves the masses drooling on themselves.
- kqr 9y ago
  I think you'll find that the most successful authors will tell you that key to their success was reading a lot written by other people.
- closeparen 9y ago
  One of my favorite lessons from Ira Glass's lecture circuit: ideas come from other ideas. The first step to producing high quality content is surrounding yourself with high quality content.
  - roceasta 9y ago
    Exactly. Writers must read 1000s of books, singers must listen to 1000s of songs, and so on. Even for those who don't create additional content, it's impossible to 'consume' culture without creative engagement. Nobody can pour content into his head: http://www.jfallen.org/wordpress/2015/04/12/the-bucket-or-the-searchlight/ http://www.jfallen.org/wordpress/2015/04/12/the-bucket-or-th...
- xaedes 9y ago
  "though should everyone follow this ideology" I dont think everybody should follow ONE and the same ideology at all. Diversity is key
emerged 9y ago
There's no doubt that incredible amounts of time are "wasted" by all of our quick dopamine hit apps and sites. These are the new opiate of the masses. It seems to be something we are all aware of, and we talk of unplugging. Some do, here and there. It's a constant struggle. The new cigarette / snack food. Just as hard to quit - but we should all at least try.
- eksemplar 9y ago
  It'll be interesting to see if these new dopamine fads play out differently. My government puts a lot of effort (money) into making people quit smoking because smokers are extremely expensive on public healthcare. Our goals are 4% by 2025, but even in countries with less of a business case for health, there are still huge campaigns against smoking. Facebook, Reddit, candy crush, instagram and so on aren't really seen as health risks. They mostly occupy the masses, and no one wants to put money into stopping that. At least not yet.
  - emerged 9y ago
    Yeah, at least not nearly with the same momentum as smoking etc. But i do think the risks and costs of these new addictions are in the collective conciousness. So it's just a matter of time until a rebellion of mass scale IMO.
  - Simon_says 9y ago
    Which government is yours? Everything I've read is that smokers have lower total healthcare costs since they die earlier and tend to have sudden deaths instead of lingering around using healthcare services. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/22/alcohol-obesity-and-smoking-do-not-cost-health-care-systems-money/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/22/alcohol-...
    - eksemplar 9y ago
      Danish, smokers are 8,3 billion DKR more costly a year than non smokers. http://www.fyens.dk/modules/mobile/article?articleid=3106811 http://www.fyens.dk/modules/mobile/article?articleid=3106811 The municipality where I work operates in a 3 billion yearly budget by comparison. So you could run more two and a half cities with 50.000 people for a year for the money smokers cost us.
whipoodle 9y ago
If you enjoy creating things, that's great. But I am not quite convinced of the inherent good of creating, being a "maker", etc. This can often be quite a consumptive activity, actually, depending on what you make. Edit: on further thought, I feel I should stress that the world belongs to us all.
syphilis2 9y ago
"We are strangers in this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to escape by self-murder; for we are the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our escape. In this life, there are three kinds of men, just as there are three sorts of people who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest class is made up of those who come to buy and sell, the next above them are those who compete. Best of all, however, are those who come simply to look on. The greatest purification of all is, therefore, disinterested science, and it is the man who devotes himself to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the 'wheel of birth.'" Burnet on the Pythagorean ethic, Early Greek Philosophy The author of the article is very engrossed in modern values. Don't let her adamance that creators control the world frighten you into churning away at something like knitting block chain encoded socks, or worse writing horror novels. The world is beyond the control of any creator anyway, even Mark Zuckerberg if you'll believe me. I think a lot of people find, after years of creating or struggling to create, it's best (or just good) to consume and contemplate without regret.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  The latter is a path to doom if followed by a civilisation though. Consumption and contemplation do not bring change and that which does not adapt will perish sooner or later.
  - Singletoned 9y ago
    That which DOES adapt will also perish sooner or later.
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      More likely later than otherwise. The change and adaptations have to be moderated and applied in diverse amounts. No single strategy or philosophy is perfect, but we shouldn't allow a few that are short term beneficial to someone to overly dominate and quash the rest. It is the reason for freedom of speech and other hard won modern freedoms. This includes allegedly noxious viewpoints. If anything, they serve as a vaccine and a reminder. (Until the society can remember and recall them in detail at will. Probably not in our lifetimes.)
dredmorbius 9y ago
History demonstrates otherwise. The world belongs to those who can extract, or create rent-extracting systems and networks. "Creators" probably the least well-served of any labour cateogory, relative to their contribution. Straight-up wage labour is also under-served, and often below the point of sustenance, but it's the contribution ratio I'm looking at. In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark (UC Davis) lists the inventors responsible for the first Industrial Revolution. Of eight or so inventors, 3-4 died in poverty, another 3-4 survived only on other activities, or through legislative compensation. Only one or two actually profited by the work they're known for. http://www.worldcat.org/title/farewell-to-alms-a-brief-economic-history-of-the-world/oclc/767762001 http://www.worldcat.org/title/farewell-to-alms-a-brief-econo... Vaclav Smil points out that the diesel engine and gas turbine are the two prime movers most responsible for all modern power production (either motive or electrical). Otto Diesel committed suicide after financial ruin. Parsons, inventor of the gas turbine, did relatively well, but failed to be recognised for the vast bulk of benefit for his work, which was posthumous. Creativity is fun, it's intellectually rewarding. Don't think for a moment that market economies offer remunerative compensation with anything resembling consistency, rationality, or proportionality.
mannanali413 9y ago
I think that any individual, who does some work creating/building a product/feature goes will identify themselves with the ideas presented in this article. However, the world actually belongs those who can get others to create and build. These usually are the people who have access to capital and use it to generate more capital.
kleer001 9y ago
Well, then that's a real shame then for people without creative impulses and or skills.
ak39 9y ago
This is spot on. I share this worldview too. Here are my thoughts I try to live by: 1. Know the type of person you are: We are all creatives and contributors at our core. We all measure our self-worth by how much we give instead of how much we take. This is part of our natural human wiring - to want to belong deservingly to a village of individuals who pull their own weight. So, if you are not creating in your natural sphere of strengths, or you don't feel you're contributing to feel worthy of your own esteem you need to sit down and think. Fix this immediately. 2. Be prolific: To be good at whatever you're creating or contributing, you have to be prolific. Genuine quality comes only through quantity. A shit ton of it. Keep hacking, keep swimming, keep sucking. 3. Judge progress, not outcomes: Judge your own evolution. Have I done better than yesterday? Do I suck less than last year? Yeah? You are golden. The dangers of comparing your own outcomes with someone else's is that you betray and cheapen your own timeline, your own history, your hard struggles and the victories over your own debilitating handicaps. Appreciating your history as the backdrop of every milestone is the essence of healthy self-esteem. Just keep swimming.
- candiodari 9y ago
  Can you give a few examples, other than apps, that one could make and reasonably sell ? Maybe it's just me but I don't see any real opportunity in this.
  - yetihehe 9y ago
    - Grow vegetables - Make tools - Make cakes - Build houses - Build machines - Create gardens There are many possibilities, you could earn reasonable money from any of above examples starting from small business and not needing to learn that much before you start.
    - candiodari 9y ago
      How would you make money from any of those ? I do not have a lot of area available, and a storefront is entirely out of the question. Especially cupcakes sounds interesting, as I'm quite confident I could automate that.
codeisawesome 9y ago
How about a slight shift in thinking? "Self-fulfilment belongs to those who create"... and perhaps try to think "the world belongs to everyone" instead. Agree with the overall intention of the post though.
happy-go-lucky 9y ago
I think the author is wondering why everyone is not a creator or making an effort at becoming one. IMO the world is never meant to be a place exclusively for creators. > And the smaller part creating for someone else to make money to continue to consumer what someone else is creating. So, unbeknownst to yourself, you’re saying the world belongs to someone else, not the creators, and this contradicts with the title of your blog post. Moreover, on one’s own, one cannot create all things that one wants or needs to consume. It would be supernatural. Since time immemorial, people have been creating things for others to consume and consuming what others have been creating. The world is fueled by mutual reliance. > Why is this an issue? It’s not unusual for people in marketing to create an issue out of nowhere :)

89 points by sophiaellis 9y ago

Create more, but responsibly.

While I agree with the overall point of the author, one thing not pointed out is that she is comparing the greats of the past (or current) to the average person. These people are/were great, not the least because they spent that much time at their work that they produce. To put it another way, there were many more (vast majority even?) people from the past, before technology, who spent their time just as unproductively as the average person nowadays. They may not be consuming content on the internet, but they could just be chatting in person, watching the sceneries, or more likely just doing labor work. Preparing food or doing laundry could be a whole day of work when you don't have technology. I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't wonder where all the time went for the modern individual compared to the times before technology. Do spend time more productively and create stuff, which is good.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

winter_blue 9y ago

This post really resonated with me, deeply. I've been having almost exactly the same thoughts that the author has had, lately. I think a lot of us underestimate how essential creative self-expression is to our well being. I've come to the realization that I don't want to just live a regular life, working and consuming, but rather I want to contribute something creative, of my own creation, to the world. Deep inside, I think most people will find their greatest joy in building and creating new things (out of love (and not just as a means of survival)).

jrs235 9y ago
Everyone desires to be [a] god. What does a god have the power to do? Create. Naturally everyone wants to create things. When we can't or aren't allowed to create we return towards the other power gods have: the power to destroy. We all want to feel in control. One way to feel that is to create things the other way is to destroy things.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  And destroy is one of the synonyms of consume.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Some things aren't destroyed when they are consumed. A digital recording doesn't disappear when listened to. A book is fine after it's read.
    - kqr 9y ago
      Well, depends on how charitably you choose to interpret "destroy". Not all books are worth a second read.
    - rdiddly 9y ago
      That's why it's one of the synonyms.
- jack1243star 9y ago
  "In the end we will be judged. Not by what we have destroyed...but what we have created!" -- Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse, Wolfenstein: The New Order
infiniteparamtr 9y ago
I've been feeling the same way. And "out of love" is a great source for creations, but survival is where I have been drawing my inspiration. I've gradually been avoiding large cities and crowds and seeking an off-grid lifestyle because it has occurred to me that the founders of places like Rome and America did that very thing.

brad0 9y ago

Great write up! I wish I had have known this when I was younger. If you feel this way start by working on small projects to completion. Everyone starts somewhere.

traviswingo 9y ago

This could possibly be the most impactful thing many of us, here, have read (consumed) recently. Bookmarked.

sharemywin 9y ago

the problem is the definition of make and create and what has value has changed. 10 thousand years ago people celebrated when a big kill was brought home from the hunt. 5000 years ago people celebrated the seasonal harvests. 100 years ago you put in a good days work at a factory turning a screw but you helped make a car. today if it's not novel or unique it's not celebrated or valued.

winter_blue 9y ago
Thousands of years ago, people made art, they wrote poems, came up with wonderful stories and mythology. Every culture has some form of human creativity. Whether art, music, or stories and poems passed down through generations. Creativity is a defining characteristic of human beings. To be creative is to be human.
- nnd 9y ago
  Well, that's what I thought about as well until recently. But the recent advancements in AI make me questions if creativity is truly unique to humans.
  - xaedes 9y ago
    as AI sprung out of humanity it will always have a grain of humanity in itself. AI doing "creative" things is doing it because we like to watch it doing that. But still I dont think there is so much special and unique to humans
mc32 9y ago
>today if it's not novel or unique it's not celebrated or valued. Yet let those things go by the wayside (any country where they experienced hyperinflation or went into decline) and the shortcomings become readily apparent. Even just refuse pickup service -soon you get vermin and contagious diseases. Actual things to worry about. Electricity and hospitals (neo-natal units and ER, for example). From the Oakland warehouse fire people realized Fire Marshall safety checks have meaning and impact. Mundane stuff makes the world go round and allows people to make mountains out of their personal molehills.

ldp01 9y ago

There's truth to this post but overall I think it's pretty naive. In a capitalist system the world belongs to those who own and have spare capital to invest vs. those who rent. Being very good at creating things is a potential pathway from renter to owner, but so is being very good at maintaining things, or managing people, etc. Anything which you can be paid a lot of money for will do.

winter_blue 9y ago
I think the author point was about what would bring the greatest self-fullfillment. It's not necessarily money. You could be an author or an artist or something else, and have far more fulfillment in life than making 10x working at a job that you're good at but that doesn't bring you as much fulfillment.
- ldp01 9y ago
  Fair enough, but I think it's a simplification of how life really works for most people. For the average person, the choice to become a successful artist isn't a trade off between more money and more satisfaction. If they fail to become successful they will significantly lose out in terms of life's more basic needs, because they won't have enough money. Edit: Don't get me wrong, I would love to agree with OP. But I don't think human society is there yet.
  - infiniteparamtr 9y ago
    I don't think that a failed artist would lose out on basic needs because of money. The average, economically entrenched observer would see a "successful artist" as one getting paid for their efforts. I see a successful artist as someone who is creative enough to acquire basic needs, comforts, and actualization with little or no money - be it through bartering or learning to create for themselves. Success can also come in the form of making statements about society through their medium(s) of choice, and ideally changing the outlook an audience. In this regard, religion and arts were the first forms of software engineering - by the modification of the observers perspective. Of course there is also aesthetic art, which is beautiful for us to admire because it is proof of the capacity of another humans attention to detail. These works usually don't seek to comment on the state of culture.

nnd 9y ago

It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The only meaningful thing to do in this world is to create, there is nothing else.

thesmallestcat 9y ago
I'd like my creations to be consumed...
- tluyben2 9y ago
  That is something I struggled with: do I like creating or do I like others to consume my creations more? And, if the latter, do I like that more because that is how I make money? I concluded after many years (I am 42) that I like creating. I need consumption of it because I might need money but for me to be happy, only creating would suffice.
  - thesmallestcat 9y ago
    My point was more that creation can't exist without consumption. It's also damn near impossible to not be a consumer. I agree that it's important to focus on creation, but I disagree with the "consumption is evil" mantra that comes out of these discussions at times.
    - tluyben2 9y ago
      Ah yes, I agree with you. It is needed. And there is not all too much wrong with it either. The evil probably comes from the pointless consumption? Not sure if we can live without that or where useful ends and pointless begins.
infiniteparamtr 9y ago
Yes it is somewhat of a vague statement. But I enjoyed the read because lately I've been trying to discipline myself with: "The more I browse the internet arbitrarily without purpose - the less effectively my time is spent." Of course, it sometimes takes a spark of surfing to began the a long-term project. It just gets so easy to consume the ~infinite content of the internet sometimes. That feeling of joy when you complete even the simplest of modifications of your environment is definitely worth pursuing.

stephengillie 9y ago

If you sleep 6 hours instead of 8, you gain about a day every 2 weeks.

adjkant 9y ago
You can also achieve the same thing by sleeping less frequently, but that doesn't work well if you care about being awake at the same time as others always. But right now I have a spare week and will gain an extra day of time this week.
- stephengillie 9y ago
  Do you mean the 28 hour day? https://xkcd.com/320/ https://xkcd.com/320/ I tried that for exactly 6 days. And went slightly crazy - days were so long that I was splitting them into an A-part and a B-part, just to keep events separate in memory. I wonder if that's what that's what the MIB feels like, in their 37-hour day. [a] If you can't get a truly flexible schedule for this, 4x10s will kinda work. [a] http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0119654/quotes http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0119654/quotes
smallnamespace 9y ago
That assumes you'll be just as efficient with less sleep over the long term, which seems far from a universal guarantee.
xaedes 9y ago
If you waste 16 hours already you can easily waste 18 hours...
- stephengillie 9y ago
  People with access to greater mental resources are capable of wasting far more time and energy than the average person.

marzipan 9y ago

It's a false dichotomy. Creating by copying and referencing is quite trivial now. We do it all the time and think nothing of it. Creating original designs, giving them a lot of thought and attention, responding to feedback, and changing workflow as a result, that's still hard. And there are a lot of ways in which you can come up with an innovative spin on old stuff - presentation, cataloging, filtering, recommending, explaining - that isn't "creative output" in the sense we are romanticizing, but provides the same kinds of effect on knowledge.

hyko 9y ago

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not a fact.

TACIXAT 9y ago

Great post. I just disabled my Facebook account. It was my most visited and least enjoyed site. It is really refreshing to not be constantly opening it. This article really helped frame how I'm feeling about it. I think it's time to cut more consumption out of my life to free up time for making things. I have so many ideas. I don't need to be consuming video game content for hours a day.

k_sh 9y ago
I did this a few weeks ago, and I feel less stressed as a result. If you're trying to spend more time creating things, I suggest you give The War of Art[1] by Steven Pressfield a read. It put words to a gnawing feeling I've felt since my late teenage years, but never knew how to confront. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/1501260626 https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/15...

icanhackit 9y ago

We’ve delegated the larger part of our days on earth to consuming what someone else has created. [...] I told him my favorite example of those who “figure it out” are rappers who are criticized for being talentless but still rake in millions. Who cares if they’re talentless (by someone’s standards)? At least they are still CREATING something! Lil Wayne [...] has released 1,747 songs So the idea is make lots of stuff, but avoid consuming all of the stuff that other people create...though should everyone follow this ideology it would be infeasible to make content prolifically because it relies on consumption to drive the next creation. Is there a middle ground, like practice your creativity prolifically but only publish your best so that the world is inspiring rather than a mire of half thought-out, tepid excrement? Maybe all of this shit clogging up the TV and internet is what leaves the masses drooling on themselves.

kqr 9y ago
I think you'll find that the most successful authors will tell you that key to their success was reading a lot written by other people.
closeparen 9y ago
One of my favorite lessons from Ira Glass's lecture circuit: ideas come from other ideas. The first step to producing high quality content is surrounding yourself with high quality content.
- roceasta 9y ago
  Exactly. Writers must read 1000s of books, singers must listen to 1000s of songs, and so on. Even for those who don't create additional content, it's impossible to 'consume' culture without creative engagement. Nobody can pour content into his head: http://www.jfallen.org/wordpress/2015/04/12/the-bucket-or-the-searchlight/ http://www.jfallen.org/wordpress/2015/04/12/the-bucket-or-th...
xaedes 9y ago
"though should everyone follow this ideology" I dont think everybody should follow ONE and the same ideology at all. Diversity is key

emerged 9y ago

There's no doubt that incredible amounts of time are "wasted" by all of our quick dopamine hit apps and sites. These are the new opiate of the masses. It seems to be something we are all aware of, and we talk of unplugging. Some do, here and there. It's a constant struggle. The new cigarette / snack food. Just as hard to quit - but we should all at least try.

eksemplar 9y ago
It'll be interesting to see if these new dopamine fads play out differently. My government puts a lot of effort (money) into making people quit smoking because smokers are extremely expensive on public healthcare. Our goals are 4% by 2025, but even in countries with less of a business case for health, there are still huge campaigns against smoking. Facebook, Reddit, candy crush, instagram and so on aren't really seen as health risks. They mostly occupy the masses, and no one wants to put money into stopping that. At least not yet.
- emerged 9y ago
  Yeah, at least not nearly with the same momentum as smoking etc. But i do think the risks and costs of these new addictions are in the collective conciousness. So it's just a matter of time until a rebellion of mass scale IMO.
- Simon_says 9y ago
  Which government is yours? Everything I've read is that smokers have lower total healthcare costs since they die earlier and tend to have sudden deaths instead of lingering around using healthcare services. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/22/alcohol-obesity-and-smoking-do-not-cost-health-care-systems-money/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/22/alcohol-...
  - eksemplar 9y ago
    Danish, smokers are 8,3 billion DKR more costly a year than non smokers. http://www.fyens.dk/modules/mobile/article?articleid=3106811 http://www.fyens.dk/modules/mobile/article?articleid=3106811 The municipality where I work operates in a 3 billion yearly budget by comparison. So you could run more two and a half cities with 50.000 people for a year for the money smokers cost us.

whipoodle 9y ago

If you enjoy creating things, that's great. But I am not quite convinced of the inherent good of creating, being a "maker", etc. This can often be quite a consumptive activity, actually, depending on what you make. Edit: on further thought, I feel I should stress that the world belongs to us all.

syphilis2 9y ago

"We are strangers in this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to escape by self-murder; for we are the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our escape. In this life, there are three kinds of men, just as there are three sorts of people who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest class is made up of those who come to buy and sell, the next above them are those who compete. Best of all, however, are those who come simply to look on. The greatest purification of all is, therefore, disinterested science, and it is the man who devotes himself to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the 'wheel of birth.'" Burnet on the Pythagorean ethic, Early Greek Philosophy The author of the article is very engrossed in modern values. Don't let her adamance that creators control the world frighten you into churning away at something like knitting block chain encoded socks, or worse writing horror novels. The world is beyond the control of any creator anyway, even Mark Zuckerberg if you'll believe me. I think a lot of people find, after years of creating or struggling to create, it's best (or just good) to consume and contemplate without regret.

AstralStorm 9y ago
The latter is a path to doom if followed by a civilisation though. Consumption and contemplation do not bring change and that which does not adapt will perish sooner or later.
- Singletoned 9y ago
  That which DOES adapt will also perish sooner or later.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    More likely later than otherwise. The change and adaptations have to be moderated and applied in diverse amounts. No single strategy or philosophy is perfect, but we shouldn't allow a few that are short term beneficial to someone to overly dominate and quash the rest. It is the reason for freedom of speech and other hard won modern freedoms. This includes allegedly noxious viewpoints. If anything, they serve as a vaccine and a reminder. (Until the society can remember and recall them in detail at will. Probably not in our lifetimes.)

dredmorbius 9y ago

History demonstrates otherwise. The world belongs to those who can extract, or create rent-extracting systems and networks. "Creators" probably the least well-served of any labour cateogory, relative to their contribution. Straight-up wage labour is also under-served, and often below the point of sustenance, but it's the contribution ratio I'm looking at. In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark (UC Davis) lists the inventors responsible for the first Industrial Revolution. Of eight or so inventors, 3-4 died in poverty, another 3-4 survived only on other activities, or through legislative compensation. Only one or two actually profited by the work they're known for. http://www.worldcat.org/title/farewell-to-alms-a-brief-economic-history-of-the-world/oclc/767762001 http://www.worldcat.org/title/farewell-to-alms-a-brief-econo... Vaclav Smil points out that the diesel engine and gas turbine are the two prime movers most responsible for all modern power production (either motive or electrical). Otto Diesel committed suicide after financial ruin. Parsons, inventor of the gas turbine, did relatively well, but failed to be recognised for the vast bulk of benefit for his work, which was posthumous. Creativity is fun, it's intellectually rewarding. Don't think for a moment that market economies offer remunerative compensation with anything resembling consistency, rationality, or proportionality.

mannanali413 9y ago

I think that any individual, who does some work creating/building a product/feature goes will identify themselves with the ideas presented in this article. However, the world actually belongs those who can get others to create and build. These usually are the people who have access to capital and use it to generate more capital.

kleer001 9y ago

Well, then that's a real shame then for people without creative impulses and or skills.

ak39 9y ago

This is spot on. I share this worldview too. Here are my thoughts I try to live by: 1. Know the type of person you are: We are all creatives and contributors at our core. We all measure our self-worth by how much we give instead of how much we take. This is part of our natural human wiring - to want to belong deservingly to a village of individuals who pull their own weight. So, if you are not creating in your natural sphere of strengths, or you don't feel you're contributing to feel worthy of your own esteem you need to sit down and think. Fix this immediately. 2. Be prolific: To be good at whatever you're creating or contributing, you have to be prolific. Genuine quality comes only through quantity. A shit ton of it. Keep hacking, keep swimming, keep sucking. 3. Judge progress, not outcomes: Judge your own evolution. Have I done better than yesterday? Do I suck less than last year? Yeah? You are golden. The dangers of comparing your own outcomes with someone else's is that you betray and cheapen your own timeline, your own history, your hard struggles and the victories over your own debilitating handicaps. Appreciating your history as the backdrop of every milestone is the essence of healthy self-esteem. Just keep swimming.

candiodari 9y ago
Can you give a few examples, other than apps, that one could make and reasonably sell ? Maybe it's just me but I don't see any real opportunity in this.
- yetihehe 9y ago
  - Grow vegetables - Make tools - Make cakes - Build houses - Build machines - Create gardens There are many possibilities, you could earn reasonable money from any of above examples starting from small business and not needing to learn that much before you start.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    How would you make money from any of those ? I do not have a lot of area available, and a storefront is entirely out of the question. Especially cupcakes sounds interesting, as I'm quite confident I could automate that.

codeisawesome 9y ago

How about a slight shift in thinking? "Self-fulfilment belongs to those who create"... and perhaps try to think "the world belongs to everyone" instead. Agree with the overall intention of the post though.

happy-go-lucky 9y ago

I think the author is wondering why everyone is not a creator or making an effort at becoming one. IMO the world is never meant to be a place exclusively for creators. > And the smaller part creating for someone else to make money to continue to consumer what someone else is creating. So, unbeknownst to yourself, you’re saying the world belongs to someone else, not the creators, and this contradicts with the title of your blog post. Moreover, on one’s own, one cannot create all things that one wants or needs to consume. It would be supernatural. Since time immemorial, people have been creating things for others to consume and consuming what others have been creating. The world is fueled by mutual reliance. > Why is this an issue? It’s not unusual for people in marketing to create an issue out of nowhere :)