13 ms·

I found that, as a person who (sometimes) creates things, my attitude towards other people who create things has significantly shifted. When I was younger I wo

by evmar 6y ago

I found that, as a person who (sometimes) creates things, my attitude towards other people who create things has significantly shifted. When I was younger I would just see the fault -- the typos, the narcissism, the pointlessness, the already-been-done-better-by-others -- of people's work. But after trying a bit, it sometimes (for the same reasons the OP talks about) creating anything new ends up being really hard in part because while you struggle everyone is shouting "lame!" from the sidelines (and doing nothing). You see this a lot on this site in particular -- the "middlebrow dismissal" HN is famous for. So now, even when I see something that I genuinely think is lame, I think of this problem and keep my negativity to myself. I might give useful criticism but I try to keep the balance in mind. Even if you publish something you've made that is kinda lame, I still think it is awesome that you are taking the effort to finish something. The best way to get better is by making multiple attempts.

pierrebai 6y ago
That's one way of looking at growth. Another is to learn from the mistakes; this sometimes requires others to point them out. A lot of the issues around it comes down to ego and how one takes criticisms. One needs to learn not to take it too personal. A lot of times, the weak points of one's work is often the bit we're lazy. Of course, many times we already know very well where we're weak, and getting it pointed out repeatedly can sting. And to make it back to the obligation to be bad, it comes down to recognizing you can always get better. In fact, the more I learn about a subject, the more I see how little I know.
heavenlyblue 6y ago
It’s easy to see the world in this black-and-white separation; however there’s a lot of creators who are there to rip you off for some money and they deserve every critique you can get. Moralising stories like that mask the actual complexity of telling the people who try to be better and are shit (and thus deserve your understanding) from people are fake trying to be better while taking advantage of you (“oh my god I didn’t realise the engine I was selling you is completely covered in rust!”). The complexity here is not selecting one of the two; but rather consistently selecting one of the two for any given moment in life. And that’s hard.
- ricardobeat 6y ago
  I think your critique of marketing-oriented folks is valid, but after saying how bad it is to polarize the discussion, you immediately made your own black-and-white view of creators.
mikeyouse 6y ago
I had a similar experience after visiting a modern art museum with a creative friend of mine. I jokingly said "Even I could have done that" about one of the pieces and my friend replied, "But you didn't" -- hit me in one of those profound realization kind of ways. I started thinking about all of the effort it takes to envision something, find the resources, build it, work to get it displayed somewhere. Just creating something from nothing is beautiful (even if it's an upside toilet sculpture).
- wbronitsky 6y ago
  Oh boy do I resonate with this. Thank you for sharing this! I remember the first time I saw "Fountain" by Duchamps, which, for the uninitiated, is a urinal, on its side, signed and dated by the artist. For years, decades, I cast it aside in my mind as something silly, something artsy, something that wasn't for me. It was ugly, vulgar, and above all, obvious. For years, seeing replica after replica in modern and contemporary art museums, I continued to breeze past the installation, laughing quietly to myself like I knew something these art people didn't. Then I had a similar situation happen. While continually saying "anyone could have done that" and "this isn't art" someone finally said to me "yes it is art, you didn't think of this, and without this, you lack the basis for many other contemporary forms of art." It then started to occur to me that this art was anything but obvious; if I so easily cast this aside as "not art," the simple fact of calling this art was a profound statement, one worth considering within its context. Maybe this piece of art had so much to teach me about perspective, context and expression that it was just too much to swallow for years.
  - martythemaniak 6y ago
    The trick is to transport yourself mentally to the time and place where that art was created. This is actually a very hard mental exercise, as art is a sort of "fingerprint" or "hash" of the world it was created in - it includes contemporary thought, politics, science, technology, social attitudes etc. Looking at art from the perspective of a century after it was introduced and its effects have become incorporated into mainstream culture just not that useful.
will_pseudonym 6y ago
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Teddy Roosevelt Such a good message. I stumbled upon that quote from Brene Brown's TED talk on shame [0], which I definitely recommend. [0] https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame
- circlefavshape 6y ago
  /me wipes the dust and sweat and blood off his face, and feels good about his efforts for a little while
- genericone 6y ago
  Just curious, would you view politicians in the same light?
- nicky0 6y ago
  This quote was printed out and stuck on the wall of the changing room of the gym I used to go to.
- matwood 6y ago
  There are many variations on this theme, and the message is all the same - it's better to try and fail than to not try at all. And to expand on it further, growth and learning comes from the the struggle and often coming up short. I was about to walk out onto the mat for my first BJJ comp and told my trainer I was nervous about letting him down. He paraphrased the Roosevelt quote above with 'any person who steps into the arena isn't letting me down'. Another, what I would also consider a variation of the above, is the quote from Michael Jordan, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
dorkwood 6y ago
Years ago I can remember seeing an artist on Twitter hitting back against some critics in the comments, saying something like "I didn't ask for your criticism". At the time, I didn't understand why they were posting their work online if they didn't want to be criticized. I thought they needed to get a thicker skin. Now that I've started sharing my own work with others, I completely see where they're coming from. Having someone who makes nothing and shares nothing log on to tell you how you should have done things differently is unwanted and not at all useful. Show me you know what you're talking about first, and I'll reconsider.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Having someone who makes nothing and shares nothing log on to tell you how you should have done things differently is unwanted and not at all useful. Until you're trying to sell your work instead of just exhibiting it.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  I love the "feedback bucket" method for dealing with this. Feedback/criticism is basically shit. 99% of it is utterly worthless and useless. So I mentally put it into the "feedback bucket" together with all the other crap (my inner critic is a plentiful source of vicious, spiteful, targetted feedback). Eventually, from the bucket, the Flowers of Insight will grow. My mind's background processing will distill all that crap into some genuinely useful insight that I can use to improve the thing. So I listen to feedback, nod and smile, thank them for their contribution, and move on, waiting for the flowers to grow.
  - SuoDuanDao 6y ago
    That is brilliant. As someone who can rely on only getting negative feedback from certain people in my life, I can definitely see myself benefiting from this approach.
  - Nohnce1 6y ago
    The visualization alone is helping with compartmentalizing negative feedback. That's a unique way to find insight by having sheer concentration of negative feedback.
hoorayimhelping 6y ago
The Man in the Arena is almost obligatory at this point: >It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic
glormph 6y ago
To me this also works the other way around. If am overly critical to others' work, my own work suffers. Only realized this now, thanks.
vmception 6y ago
On a similar vein of thought, I asked someone yesterday if certain best practices were relevant to their use case, instead of talking about how many shortcomings their app has.
random_kris 6y ago
Couldn't agree more
h0l0cube 6y ago
> creating anything new ends up being really hard in part because while you struggle everyone is shouting "lame!" from the sidelines This reminds me of the 'curse of development' from the Gervais Principle. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-iii-the-curse-of-development/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-...
jonnypotty 6y ago
People who makes things are the real mvp, not the critics. The thing is that critics are funny.
raxxorrax 6y ago
I think I comprehend the difficulty of creating something but I still rant about things freely. Not if it isn't interest me and not by shouting lame if there is no interest in the topic. I know how quickly people grow expectations and you begin to put them on yourself. If your most loyal fan would like an update before christmas, you might find yourself putting in quite some extra hours. Underselling yourself might be from a time when humility was a virtue. I don't see modern societies reflecting that too much anymore. But you can also find yourself in a situation where you have to justify your abilities. But I believe underselling also keeps you from creating expectations. Smart thing to do is tell everyone how stupid you are. And suddenly you are the guy full of surprises. Better than the other way around and being completely honest is of course out of the question for humans.
BrandoElFollito 6y ago
I find a lot of contemporary art awful. Yes, I did not do it because I find it awful. When something is "though provoking" (a blank painting, or the urinal discussed elsewhere) I am simply reinforced in my opinion that people think differently (and obviously my thinking is the most appropriate). There is nothing to provoque here, just diffrent galaxies of concerns and thoughts.

by evmar 6y ago

pierrebai 6y ago

That's one way of looking at growth. Another is to learn from the mistakes; this sometimes requires others to point them out. A lot of the issues around it comes down to ego and how one takes criticisms. One needs to learn not to take it too personal. A lot of times, the weak points of one's work is often the bit we're lazy. Of course, many times we already know very well where we're weak, and getting it pointed out repeatedly can sting. And to make it back to the obligation to be bad, it comes down to recognizing you can always get better. In fact, the more I learn about a subject, the more I see how little I know.

heavenlyblue 6y ago

It’s easy to see the world in this black-and-white separation; however there’s a lot of creators who are there to rip you off for some money and they deserve every critique you can get. Moralising stories like that mask the actual complexity of telling the people who try to be better and are shit (and thus deserve your understanding) from people are fake trying to be better while taking advantage of you (“oh my god I didn’t realise the engine I was selling you is completely covered in rust!”). The complexity here is not selecting one of the two; but rather consistently selecting one of the two for any given moment in life. And that’s hard.

ricardobeat 6y ago
I think your critique of marketing-oriented folks is valid, but after saying how bad it is to polarize the discussion, you immediately made your own black-and-white view of creators.

mikeyouse 6y ago

I had a similar experience after visiting a modern art museum with a creative friend of mine. I jokingly said "Even I could have done that" about one of the pieces and my friend replied, "But you didn't" -- hit me in one of those profound realization kind of ways. I started thinking about all of the effort it takes to envision something, find the resources, build it, work to get it displayed somewhere. Just creating something from nothing is beautiful (even if it's an upside toilet sculpture).

wbronitsky 6y ago
Oh boy do I resonate with this. Thank you for sharing this! I remember the first time I saw "Fountain" by Duchamps, which, for the uninitiated, is a urinal, on its side, signed and dated by the artist. For years, decades, I cast it aside in my mind as something silly, something artsy, something that wasn't for me. It was ugly, vulgar, and above all, obvious. For years, seeing replica after replica in modern and contemporary art museums, I continued to breeze past the installation, laughing quietly to myself like I knew something these art people didn't. Then I had a similar situation happen. While continually saying "anyone could have done that" and "this isn't art" someone finally said to me "yes it is art, you didn't think of this, and without this, you lack the basis for many other contemporary forms of art." It then started to occur to me that this art was anything but obvious; if I so easily cast this aside as "not art," the simple fact of calling this art was a profound statement, one worth considering within its context. Maybe this piece of art had so much to teach me about perspective, context and expression that it was just too much to swallow for years.
- martythemaniak 6y ago
  The trick is to transport yourself mentally to the time and place where that art was created. This is actually a very hard mental exercise, as art is a sort of "fingerprint" or "hash" of the world it was created in - it includes contemporary thought, politics, science, technology, social attitudes etc. Looking at art from the perspective of a century after it was introduced and its effects have become incorporated into mainstream culture just not that useful.

will_pseudonym 6y ago

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Teddy Roosevelt Such a good message. I stumbled upon that quote from Brene Brown's TED talk on shame [0], which I definitely recommend. [0] https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame

circlefavshape 6y ago
/me wipes the dust and sweat and blood off his face, and feels good about his efforts for a little while
genericone 6y ago
Just curious, would you view politicians in the same light?
nicky0 6y ago
This quote was printed out and stuck on the wall of the changing room of the gym I used to go to.
matwood 6y ago
There are many variations on this theme, and the message is all the same - it's better to try and fail than to not try at all. And to expand on it further, growth and learning comes from the the struggle and often coming up short. I was about to walk out onto the mat for my first BJJ comp and told my trainer I was nervous about letting him down. He paraphrased the Roosevelt quote above with 'any person who steps into the arena isn't letting me down'. Another, what I would also consider a variation of the above, is the quote from Michael Jordan, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

dorkwood 6y ago

Years ago I can remember seeing an artist on Twitter hitting back against some critics in the comments, saying something like "I didn't ask for your criticism". At the time, I didn't understand why they were posting their work online if they didn't want to be criticized. I thought they needed to get a thicker skin. Now that I've started sharing my own work with others, I completely see where they're coming from. Having someone who makes nothing and shares nothing log on to tell you how you should have done things differently is unwanted and not at all useful. Show me you know what you're talking about first, and I'll reconsider.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Having someone who makes nothing and shares nothing log on to tell you how you should have done things differently is unwanted and not at all useful. Until you're trying to sell your work instead of just exhibiting it.
marcus_holmes 6y ago
I love the "feedback bucket" method for dealing with this. Feedback/criticism is basically shit. 99% of it is utterly worthless and useless. So I mentally put it into the "feedback bucket" together with all the other crap (my inner critic is a plentiful source of vicious, spiteful, targetted feedback). Eventually, from the bucket, the Flowers of Insight will grow. My mind's background processing will distill all that crap into some genuinely useful insight that I can use to improve the thing. So I listen to feedback, nod and smile, thank them for their contribution, and move on, waiting for the flowers to grow.
- SuoDuanDao 6y ago
  That is brilliant. As someone who can rely on only getting negative feedback from certain people in my life, I can definitely see myself benefiting from this approach.
- Nohnce1 6y ago
  The visualization alone is helping with compartmentalizing negative feedback. That's a unique way to find insight by having sheer concentration of negative feedback.

hoorayimhelping 6y ago

The Man in the Arena is almost obligatory at this point: >It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic

glormph 6y ago

To me this also works the other way around. If am overly critical to others' work, my own work suffers. Only realized this now, thanks.

vmception 6y ago

On a similar vein of thought, I asked someone yesterday if certain best practices were relevant to their use case, instead of talking about how many shortcomings their app has.

random_kris 6y ago

Couldn't agree more

h0l0cube 6y ago

> creating anything new ends up being really hard in part because while you struggle everyone is shouting "lame!" from the sidelines This reminds me of the 'curse of development' from the Gervais Principle. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-iii-the-curse-of-development/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-...

jonnypotty 6y ago

People who makes things are the real mvp, not the critics. The thing is that critics are funny.

raxxorrax 6y ago

I think I comprehend the difficulty of creating something but I still rant about things freely. Not if it isn't interest me and not by shouting lame if there is no interest in the topic. I know how quickly people grow expectations and you begin to put them on yourself. If your most loyal fan would like an update before christmas, you might find yourself putting in quite some extra hours. Underselling yourself might be from a time when humility was a virtue. I don't see modern societies reflecting that too much anymore. But you can also find yourself in a situation where you have to justify your abilities. But I believe underselling also keeps you from creating expectations. Smart thing to do is tell everyone how stupid you are. And suddenly you are the guy full of surprises. Better than the other way around and being completely honest is of course out of the question for humans.

BrandoElFollito 6y ago

I find a lot of contemporary art awful. Yes, I did not do it because I find it awful. When something is "though provoking" (a blank painting, or the urinal discussed elsewhere) I am simply reinforced in my opinion that people think differently (and obviously my thinking is the most appropriate). There is nothing to provoque here, just diffrent galaxies of concerns and thoughts.