11 ms·

I believe that everybody has the capacity to be creative, and those who think they don't are impeded not by a lack of creative spark, but rather by their own in

I believe that everybody has the capacity to be creative, and those who think they don't are impeded not by a lack of creative spark, but rather by their own inhibitions and belief that they aren't creative. Part of this is cultural; engineers are told by society that an engineer/artist schism exists and incorporate that meme into their self-image, writing off their own ability to be creative. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy because creativity is like a muscle that needs to be exercised.

mountainriver 4y ago
Yeah I agree with this, most of the people I know that aren’t creative seem to have some emotional block or belief that it’s not their role. Often if you get past that they are incredibly creative
mattwad 4y ago
For sure. I have a bachelor's in Fine Arts but taught myself to code. I think the pendulum has swung too far, I need to get back to painting/drawing and exercise that muscle again :)
- GuB-42 4y ago
  Make demos ;) I am talking about the demoscene here.
bergenty 4y ago
I’m right there with you. I thought I wasn’t creative. The magic insight was that you just start doing the thing and creativity comes as part of the process. Don’t know how to start? Just start and the process automatically becomes breaking down the task into thousands of tiny parts that you then just do.
- pm90 4y ago
  A CS centric way of looking at this is that spending (brain) cycles exploring the problem is a necessary but not sufficient condition to solve it. Most people don’t believe they can and don’t even try. But the brain is very fascinating and imo anyone is capable of problem solving. One practical reason I am really sold on diversity in Tech is that I believe peoples experiences shape the way they think about problems. Having different kinds of minds looking at the same problem can result in different solutions. And that’s amazing. We can’t predict how it will work in advance, all we can do is create the right conditions which precipitate this result.
- robocat 4y ago
  > the process automatically becomes breaking down the task into thousands of tiny parts One way I categorise artists I have met is engineer-type artists versus discovery-type artists. * engineer-type artists: definite goal. The artist has a defined goal in mind for a piece of art, they plan towards achieving that goal, and they produce their artwork. Learning and creativity within some of the steps. * discovery-type artists: no defined goal. There is a huge mount of play and seemingly random experimentation with their medium, almost searching for random discovery. Often playing within a chosen restricted domain. They might say something like “the work discovered itself as I did it”. I am an engineer at heart, so I have really appreciated learning how discovery-type artists create. Disclaimer: not an artist.
  - jackvalentine 4y ago
    I liked your two categories, they make sense to me. As a discovery-type it is sometimes really difficult to work with other people!
  - Slow_Hand 4y ago
    I find this distinction to match my experience with musicians (qualification: I produce records). I lean more towards this engineer mindset, but know plenty of artists who just dive right in and start molding and hacking away. One of the big takeaways that I've gotten from observing them is the importance of just starting. Even if I don't know where I'm headed. If I persist in generating bad ideas I will eventually fall into a creative groove that is rewarding. It might take an hour or more to arrive there, but it happens. The composer Carla Bley summed up the importance of her daily work routine succinctly in an essay: "If the muse strikes when you're in the kitchen, the best you're going to get is a sandwich." I believe I also say this sentiment described a while ago in a long-forgotten HN essay. The writer referred to it as AIC: Ass-in-chair methodology. Just sit down and start working.
inglor_cz 4y ago
"I believe that everybody has the capacity to be creative" Maybe, but I am almost certain that this capacity is highly unequal. Some people are like walking geysers of inspiration and you cannot suppress them culturally anymore than you can prevent the July sun from baking the sand. Others are decidedly low-voltage even when it comes to private creativity (such as decorating your own home). It is the same with muscles. We all have some muscles, but only some people do really have the potential to be good athletes.
- robonerd 4y ago
  I think you're speaking of interest and motivation, without which you won't try to be creative or hit the gym. But I believe the capability still exists within you, even if you choose to ignore it. Nobody is unable to be an artist because of the way they were born.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    I am not sure if this is distinction without difference. A part of being an artist is, for me at least, the drive to do something. Myself, I write quite a lot (in Czech), I have published 7 books so far. I am not claiming to be a big artist, merely a mediocre one, but I notice that I don't really have a choice. I have to write something almost every day, much like a full toilet bowl has to overflow.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      There is difference between motivation and aptitude.
      - inglor_cz 4y ago
        True, but practice makes, if not perfect, at least better.
    - popcube 4y ago
      I will say this is your gift, a lot of talent people can work hard than anyone
varispeed 4y ago
It also quite depends on environment. When you try to think about something, the observer may think that you are just being lazy and doing nothing. I can't count how many times I've been told by parents or other people that used to be close that I should do some work rather than just sit and stare at the wall. And I would have some really great ideas of how to make something or how to solve something. Then those people would say - you are just stupid, you can't do this and that. I can imagine many people will try to shun such thoughts and associate it with something unpleasant. As I did for many years. This may sound brutal, but only when I cut contact with every single person that was negatively affecting my creativity in the past and present I stopped being depressed (not completely, sometimes it's coming back), but also started getting successes at work and eventually I was able to start doing things on my own. Some people don't realise how toxic they are and there isn't even point talking to them about that, because you are going to get ridiculed and attacked.
- wrnr 4y ago
baby 4y ago
To me it’s a matter of investing time to learn an art medium. Painting, playing music, or writing code, all require some painful hours/days/weeks/months of learning before you can actually use the medium to “create”. Most people don’t get past that learning phase, and thus can never really have fun creating.
fleddr 4y ago
Probably true, but as the article suggests, it may be more than just exercise. Some people seem to be given a creative brain from the get-go, whilst others must work very hard to produce creative outcomes, and indeed...may stop trying altogether because of this. If I take the least creative people in my circles, one pattern I can spot is that they lack curiosity. Interests are narrow, shallow and for pragmatic reasons only. Not ignorant, just cognitively passive. My pseudo-scientific take on creativity is that it's connecting dots in unforeseen ways. Without curiosity though, there's little to connect.
62951413 4y ago
Wouldn't that be a rather unique human trait not following the normal probability distribution?
redmen 4y ago
That might be much more true for children. Definitely not the vast majority of adults.
huachimingo 4y ago
Sometimes you need to see all the available tools. Replace the "talent" with a little "technique". Cannot draw 3D with perspective? Use isometric-ish projection with graded axes. Cannot do music? Learn music theory, some scales and so on.Maybe an easier instrument. Of course it will not replace a person with natural talents, but it can help to overcome those beliefs.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
I believe everybody has the capacity to be a LOT of different things but money means many/most are lead down a path of drudgery. Like the TarSnap guy, first you have to be free. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981486
darkerside 4y ago
"I'm not a math person"
Biologist123 4y ago
Creative is a very fuzzy word. For example, why is someone who produces works of art considered “creative”, but someone who creates - for example bridges - an engineer?
user_named 4y ago
I have an engineering degree and work in tech. I've also been part of more than 30 exhibitions around the world. Creating a new web app side project and an art project in whatever medium is exactly the same type of creative work. However, being somebody working inside a large institution, whether tech or art, is not creative because you are limited by the org what you can say do and in practice even think. You cannot be creative there. So the environment either permits you or restricts you from being creative. You need to breakout and create your own environment to be creative in. And, once you become an established artist you have certain rules to follow so you can no longer be as creative as when you started out.
jnash 4y ago
> I believe that everybody has the capacity to be creative I like your optimism but it isn't my experience. Creative people can't help but be creative. They need no prompting, no encouragement, no practice etc. They just do it. I personally need to create things and feel like I am missing something or wasting my life if I am not busy with projects. Most people I know aren't like that at all.
steve_adams_86 4y ago
This could be my neurological development being slightly askew, but I am not creative in the slightest. I used to think I was somewhat creative (I drew constantly as a child and into my late teens, played a lot of music, worked as a graphic designer, love building things from wood, sort of a “maker” of sorts these days), but then I realized I’m just a regurgitation machine. I’m not sure I’ve had a remotely original or interesting idea of my own in my life. I just suck up everything around me, rip it apart, slap it back together, and that’s my version of “creativity”. I’ve been working at being more creative now that I’ve realized I’m not creative, and I have no idea how. I am a pattern replicating machine. I’m a little disappointed, but also somewhat content that I can enjoy what I do nonetheless. It’s all a sort of meditation and practice in developing skills. I’m not sure I ever prided myself on being creative in the first place, so it’s not a loss I suppose. But when you say anyone can be creative, I have no idea what you mean. I can’t figure it out. Everything I think of is something someone has done. I can trace everything back to someone else. There is nothing creative about it.
- 8bp 4y ago
  What I find funny is that the description of your version of "creativity" is my general definition of creativity. Has anyone ever done anything completely original and unheard of before? I think to be creative at something is to have a large mental library of concepts within a certain space, and to be able to mix and match those concepts. Much like ripping ideas apart and slapping them back together as you say. I used to think visual character design was the hardest thing ever. To just come up with something out of nowhere. that being creative like that was a very difficult thing. What I didn't usually see or look at is all the designs those people have seen and taken inspiration from before. I think that's also why some ideas can be "ahead of their time". Someone made a connection between some concepts that many people haven't yet, and will think is too farfetched. Still, over time people can come to see value in that idea that was dismissed earlier. Just to reiterate my main point, I think it's easy to look at what other people do and think "Wow, how original!", without ever seeing their inspiration for something. Even though they might just feel like they replicated some patterns.
- animal531 4y ago
  You're too hard on yourself, the reality is that this is the vast majority of people. There are those few percent of people that will come up with something new, but the majority of time its a person thinking about combining A with B, and coming up with something that's just slightly new.

mountainriver 4y ago

Yeah I agree with this, most of the people I know that aren’t creative seem to have some emotional block or belief that it’s not their role. Often if you get past that they are incredibly creative

mattwad 4y ago

For sure. I have a bachelor's in Fine Arts but taught myself to code. I think the pendulum has swung too far, I need to get back to painting/drawing and exercise that muscle again :)

GuB-42 4y ago
Make demos ;) I am talking about the demoscene here.

bergenty 4y ago

I’m right there with you. I thought I wasn’t creative. The magic insight was that you just start doing the thing and creativity comes as part of the process. Don’t know how to start? Just start and the process automatically becomes breaking down the task into thousands of tiny parts that you then just do.

pm90 4y ago
A CS centric way of looking at this is that spending (brain) cycles exploring the problem is a necessary but not sufficient condition to solve it. Most people don’t believe they can and don’t even try. But the brain is very fascinating and imo anyone is capable of problem solving. One practical reason I am really sold on diversity in Tech is that I believe peoples experiences shape the way they think about problems. Having different kinds of minds looking at the same problem can result in different solutions. And that’s amazing. We can’t predict how it will work in advance, all we can do is create the right conditions which precipitate this result.
robocat 4y ago
> the process automatically becomes breaking down the task into thousands of tiny parts One way I categorise artists I have met is engineer-type artists versus discovery-type artists. * engineer-type artists: definite goal. The artist has a defined goal in mind for a piece of art, they plan towards achieving that goal, and they produce their artwork. Learning and creativity within some of the steps. * discovery-type artists: no defined goal. There is a huge mount of play and seemingly random experimentation with their medium, almost searching for random discovery. Often playing within a chosen restricted domain. They might say something like “the work discovered itself as I did it”. I am an engineer at heart, so I have really appreciated learning how discovery-type artists create. Disclaimer: not an artist.
- jackvalentine 4y ago
  I liked your two categories, they make sense to me. As a discovery-type it is sometimes really difficult to work with other people!
- Slow_Hand 4y ago
  I find this distinction to match my experience with musicians (qualification: I produce records). I lean more towards this engineer mindset, but know plenty of artists who just dive right in and start molding and hacking away. One of the big takeaways that I've gotten from observing them is the importance of just starting. Even if I don't know where I'm headed. If I persist in generating bad ideas I will eventually fall into a creative groove that is rewarding. It might take an hour or more to arrive there, but it happens. The composer Carla Bley summed up the importance of her daily work routine succinctly in an essay: "If the muse strikes when you're in the kitchen, the best you're going to get is a sandwich." I believe I also say this sentiment described a while ago in a long-forgotten HN essay. The writer referred to it as AIC: Ass-in-chair methodology. Just sit down and start working.

inglor_cz 4y ago

"I believe that everybody has the capacity to be creative" Maybe, but I am almost certain that this capacity is highly unequal. Some people are like walking geysers of inspiration and you cannot suppress them culturally anymore than you can prevent the July sun from baking the sand. Others are decidedly low-voltage even when it comes to private creativity (such as decorating your own home). It is the same with muscles. We all have some muscles, but only some people do really have the potential to be good athletes.

robonerd 4y ago
I think you're speaking of interest and motivation, without which you won't try to be creative or hit the gym. But I believe the capability still exists within you, even if you choose to ignore it. Nobody is unable to be an artist because of the way they were born.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  I am not sure if this is distinction without difference. A part of being an artist is, for me at least, the drive to do something. Myself, I write quite a lot (in Czech), I have published 7 books so far. I am not claiming to be a big artist, merely a mediocre one, but I notice that I don't really have a choice. I have to write something almost every day, much like a full toilet bowl has to overflow.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    There is difference between motivation and aptitude.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      True, but practice makes, if not perfect, at least better.
  - popcube 4y ago
    I will say this is your gift, a lot of talent people can work hard than anyone

varispeed 4y ago

It also quite depends on environment. When you try to think about something, the observer may think that you are just being lazy and doing nothing. I can't count how many times I've been told by parents or other people that used to be close that I should do some work rather than just sit and stare at the wall. And I would have some really great ideas of how to make something or how to solve something. Then those people would say - you are just stupid, you can't do this and that. I can imagine many people will try to shun such thoughts and associate it with something unpleasant. As I did for many years. This may sound brutal, but only when I cut contact with every single person that was negatively affecting my creativity in the past and present I stopped being depressed (not completely, sometimes it's coming back), but also started getting successes at work and eventually I was able to start doing things on my own. Some people don't realise how toxic they are and there isn't even point talking to them about that, because you are going to get ridiculed and attacked.

wrnr 4y ago

baby 4y ago

To me it’s a matter of investing time to learn an art medium. Painting, playing music, or writing code, all require some painful hours/days/weeks/months of learning before you can actually use the medium to “create”. Most people don’t get past that learning phase, and thus can never really have fun creating.

fleddr 4y ago

Probably true, but as the article suggests, it may be more than just exercise. Some people seem to be given a creative brain from the get-go, whilst others must work very hard to produce creative outcomes, and indeed...may stop trying altogether because of this. If I take the least creative people in my circles, one pattern I can spot is that they lack curiosity. Interests are narrow, shallow and for pragmatic reasons only. Not ignorant, just cognitively passive. My pseudo-scientific take on creativity is that it's connecting dots in unforeseen ways. Without curiosity though, there's little to connect.

62951413 4y ago

Wouldn't that be a rather unique human trait not following the normal probability distribution?

redmen 4y ago

That might be much more true for children. Definitely not the vast majority of adults.

huachimingo 4y ago

Sometimes you need to see all the available tools. Replace the "talent" with a little "technique". Cannot draw 3D with perspective? Use isometric-ish projection with graded axes. Cannot do music? Learn music theory, some scales and so on.Maybe an easier instrument. Of course it will not replace a person with natural talents, but it can help to overcome those beliefs.

_carbyau_ 4y ago

I believe everybody has the capacity to be a LOT of different things but money means many/most are lead down a path of drudgery. Like the TarSnap guy, first you have to be free. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981486

darkerside 4y ago

"I'm not a math person"

Biologist123 4y ago

Creative is a very fuzzy word. For example, why is someone who produces works of art considered “creative”, but someone who creates - for example bridges - an engineer?

user_named 4y ago

I have an engineering degree and work in tech. I've also been part of more than 30 exhibitions around the world. Creating a new web app side project and an art project in whatever medium is exactly the same type of creative work. However, being somebody working inside a large institution, whether tech or art, is not creative because you are limited by the org what you can say do and in practice even think. You cannot be creative there. So the environment either permits you or restricts you from being creative. You need to breakout and create your own environment to be creative in. And, once you become an established artist you have certain rules to follow so you can no longer be as creative as when you started out.

jnash 4y ago

> I believe that everybody has the capacity to be creative I like your optimism but it isn't my experience. Creative people can't help but be creative. They need no prompting, no encouragement, no practice etc. They just do it. I personally need to create things and feel like I am missing something or wasting my life if I am not busy with projects. Most people I know aren't like that at all.

steve_adams_86 4y ago

This could be my neurological development being slightly askew, but I am not creative in the slightest. I used to think I was somewhat creative (I drew constantly as a child and into my late teens, played a lot of music, worked as a graphic designer, love building things from wood, sort of a “maker” of sorts these days), but then I realized I’m just a regurgitation machine. I’m not sure I’ve had a remotely original or interesting idea of my own in my life. I just suck up everything around me, rip it apart, slap it back together, and that’s my version of “creativity”. I’ve been working at being more creative now that I’ve realized I’m not creative, and I have no idea how. I am a pattern replicating machine. I’m a little disappointed, but also somewhat content that I can enjoy what I do nonetheless. It’s all a sort of meditation and practice in developing skills. I’m not sure I ever prided myself on being creative in the first place, so it’s not a loss I suppose. But when you say anyone can be creative, I have no idea what you mean. I can’t figure it out. Everything I think of is something someone has done. I can trace everything back to someone else. There is nothing creative about it.

8bp 4y ago
What I find funny is that the description of your version of "creativity" is my general definition of creativity. Has anyone ever done anything completely original and unheard of before? I think to be creative at something is to have a large mental library of concepts within a certain space, and to be able to mix and match those concepts. Much like ripping ideas apart and slapping them back together as you say. I used to think visual character design was the hardest thing ever. To just come up with something out of nowhere. that being creative like that was a very difficult thing. What I didn't usually see or look at is all the designs those people have seen and taken inspiration from before. I think that's also why some ideas can be "ahead of their time". Someone made a connection between some concepts that many people haven't yet, and will think is too farfetched. Still, over time people can come to see value in that idea that was dismissed earlier. Just to reiterate my main point, I think it's easy to look at what other people do and think "Wow, how original!", without ever seeing their inspiration for something. Even though they might just feel like they replicated some patterns.
animal531 4y ago
You're too hard on yourself, the reality is that this is the vast majority of people. There are those few percent of people that will come up with something new, but the majority of time its a person thinking about combining A with B, and coming up with something that's just slightly new.