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It’s kind of easy to take this extremely literally and pick it apart, which a lot of comments here are doing, but might be helpful to broaden what “solitude” me

by dahart 4y ago

It’s kind of easy to take this extremely literally and pick it apart, which a lot of comments here are doing, but might be helpful to broaden what “solitude” means and maybe even read it as though it’s a bit allegorical. Also important to remember this was more than 100 years ago, and that he’s talking very specifically about how to write poetry. All the way through I felt like he could have been talking about social media. Metaphorically, he seems to be saying (to me even more strongly than isolation): that motivation needs to be intrinsic, it should come from yourself and your own desires, not from others; and that you should practice your craft intensely and make sure the practice of writing poetry is free from interruptions or noise that cloud things. He may be naming the state of flow we all want using words for it that we’re not used to these days, along with a push for writers to set their own standards and not judge themselves by publishing metrics. These are fairly timeless and applicable ideas today, not to mention all of us programmers frequently dream of solitude and perhaps resent the fact that we almost never get it at work.

caprock 4y ago
Well said. Your point leads me (once again) to wonder. Is programming, or some specific aspect of it, fundamentally a creative practice?
- gabereiser 4y ago
  Anything can be a creative practice once you learn that the rules that constrained it can be bent. Obviously there are areas where creativity will lead to massive explosions (which is how we know!) but programming, computers, art, hell even sitting in a toll booth can be creative endeavors. (Shout out to the fun folks working the booths at Universal Studios Orlando!)
  - caprock 4y ago
    That's an interesting perspective. It's been clear to me that creativity often arises from constraints, but I'd not really flipped the concept around like that before. Thank you for sharing!
- michaelbrave 4y ago
  I mean programming is more or less understanding a thing well enough to tell the machine how to go through the steps of it. I've always thought of it in a similar vein to the problem solving we use in design. So if we think of design or writing as creative, yes I think programming is too.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dahart 4y ago
  I think so. Here are several possibly unrelated takes that are my own opinion: one is that a “creative practice” at it’s most basic is simply creating something, and in that sense programming is absolutely creative. It need not be mysterious or artistic or particularly unique or personal, it can be seen as creative if it’s nothing more than new. Another is that I practice digital art on my own, separate from my day job, and the process of making procedural art using a computer is similar in many ways to making art using traditional techniques, I absolutely view programming imagery as creative programming. A third view is that good programming is an art, not a science. We always have lots of options and it can be hard to choose; the people who are best at it are the ones who spend time designing and crafting and worrying about function and form. Deciding on the architecture is usually about balancing goals and understanding your audience. Tuning the performance of code is done best when finding out and thinking about how people perceive it while they use it. I do personally think of writing good code as an artistic process, conceptually similar to my own workflows for writing stories or painting pictures. The tools are different but the ideas are often the same.
- dimal 4y ago
  Absolutely. You start with nothing then you write magical words that DO things.
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
My partner does a lot of art and frequently draws in social settings. She finds drawing by herself lonely, isolating, and draining. These sorts of takes incense her as she faces pressure to work alone. The problem with these sorts of theses is that they affirm the experiences of those who agree but do nothing with others. Programmers are more likely than most to prefer solitude, but even that isn't a constant. Extrapolating behavior across humanity from personal anecdotes has never been particularly effective.
- swayvil 4y ago
  I have a friend who does this. Right in the middle of the crowd with her pad. It's a little bit, "hey look everybody I'm drawing!" I used to draw a lot in school. All classes. I was not on the same planet. The hum of the crowd gave me energy.
  - fuzzfactor 4y ago
    Solitude is one thing. To me it's just one certain type of creativity, and there are also many other types to indulge in as well. When I was a college student I was in science but we used to go to the full moon parties thrown by the art students. They would have a blank canvas about 6x12 feet on their main wall and guests had lots of space to paint in teams or contribute to the community effort. It was amazing to see what it looked like at different times during the weekend. Real soon you would never mistake that it could be the work of only one person. This would be a good idea these days, and have some webcams recording it so you could watch later in fast motion. >It’s kind of easy to take this extremely literally and pick it apart I don't think you have to pick it apart, but on the whole you could say if you spend a lot of time on your own you could eventually expect to start making up conversations with people who truly exist(ed), but unlikely to ever meet in person and flesh things out for real. Maybe better than a non-existent counterpart, maybe not, who am I to judge?
- dahart 4y ago
  Yeah I agree with this too, which is one reason I was subtly making a distinction above between goals and actions. Rilke’s goals seem to be intrinsic motivation and intense focus, but “solitude” is the action he concludes one needs to do to achieve those goals (of writing poetry). Really, there are different kinds of people and different kinds of creative work, and different goals. Rilke had success, but there are plenty of poets, and many many more artists and creatives, who are wildly social. Creativity doesn’t require solitude, I just wanted to extract the parts of this essay that were helpful for me. I liked reading this fictitious conversation by Rilke, but I’m not about to take it as bible truth and go live in the woods in hopes of being more creative. (And I don’t think he was actually suggesting that either, it seems like he was talking about protecting his work time, like during the day, because it’s an action that worked for him to achieve his goals.) > Programmers are more likely than most to prefer solitude, but even that isn’t a constant. True! And we often want solitude even when it isn’t the best thing. ;) I have watched myself and others go too far away from what is needed in some situations because the requirements weren’t understood well enough, and assumptions were being made, and because it’s super fun to dive into a clever algorithm or data structure, or a learn and implement a fancy technique. Programming in a business setting is a social process and sometimes means checking in with people early and often, iterating, and getting repeated feedback. I got in trouble in my very first industry job when I complained about having to report my progress daily because it took an hour to prepare and interrupted my flow, the note in my file about uncooperativeness stayed around for years. Later I came to believe I was in the wrong because of watching people drift away from the goals without enough talking…

by dahart 4y ago

caprock 4y ago

Well said. Your point leads me (once again) to wonder. Is programming, or some specific aspect of it, fundamentally a creative practice?

gabereiser 4y ago
Anything can be a creative practice once you learn that the rules that constrained it can be bent. Obviously there are areas where creativity will lead to massive explosions (which is how we know!) but programming, computers, art, hell even sitting in a toll booth can be creative endeavors. (Shout out to the fun folks working the booths at Universal Studios Orlando!)
- caprock 4y ago
  That's an interesting perspective. It's been clear to me that creativity often arises from constraints, but I'd not really flipped the concept around like that before. Thank you for sharing!
michaelbrave 4y ago
I mean programming is more or less understanding a thing well enough to tell the machine how to go through the steps of it. I've always thought of it in a similar vein to the problem solving we use in design. So if we think of design or writing as creative, yes I think programming is too.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dahart 4y ago
I think so. Here are several possibly unrelated takes that are my own opinion: one is that a “creative practice” at it’s most basic is simply creating something, and in that sense programming is absolutely creative. It need not be mysterious or artistic or particularly unique or personal, it can be seen as creative if it’s nothing more than new. Another is that I practice digital art on my own, separate from my day job, and the process of making procedural art using a computer is similar in many ways to making art using traditional techniques, I absolutely view programming imagery as creative programming. A third view is that good programming is an art, not a science. We always have lots of options and it can be hard to choose; the people who are best at it are the ones who spend time designing and crafting and worrying about function and form. Deciding on the architecture is usually about balancing goals and understanding your audience. Tuning the performance of code is done best when finding out and thinking about how people perceive it while they use it. I do personally think of writing good code as an artistic process, conceptually similar to my own workflows for writing stories or painting pictures. The tools are different but the ideas are often the same.
dimal 4y ago
Absolutely. You start with nothing then you write magical words that DO things.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago

My partner does a lot of art and frequently draws in social settings. She finds drawing by herself lonely, isolating, and draining. These sorts of takes incense her as she faces pressure to work alone. The problem with these sorts of theses is that they affirm the experiences of those who agree but do nothing with others. Programmers are more likely than most to prefer solitude, but even that isn't a constant. Extrapolating behavior across humanity from personal anecdotes has never been particularly effective.

swayvil 4y ago
I have a friend who does this. Right in the middle of the crowd with her pad. It's a little bit, "hey look everybody I'm drawing!" I used to draw a lot in school. All classes. I was not on the same planet. The hum of the crowd gave me energy.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  Solitude is one thing. To me it's just one certain type of creativity, and there are also many other types to indulge in as well. When I was a college student I was in science but we used to go to the full moon parties thrown by the art students. They would have a blank canvas about 6x12 feet on their main wall and guests had lots of space to paint in teams or contribute to the community effort. It was amazing to see what it looked like at different times during the weekend. Real soon you would never mistake that it could be the work of only one person. This would be a good idea these days, and have some webcams recording it so you could watch later in fast motion. >It’s kind of easy to take this extremely literally and pick it apart I don't think you have to pick it apart, but on the whole you could say if you spend a lot of time on your own you could eventually expect to start making up conversations with people who truly exist(ed), but unlikely to ever meet in person and flesh things out for real. Maybe better than a non-existent counterpart, maybe not, who am I to judge?
dahart 4y ago
Yeah I agree with this too, which is one reason I was subtly making a distinction above between goals and actions. Rilke’s goals seem to be intrinsic motivation and intense focus, but “solitude” is the action he concludes one needs to do to achieve those goals (of writing poetry). Really, there are different kinds of people and different kinds of creative work, and different goals. Rilke had success, but there are plenty of poets, and many many more artists and creatives, who are wildly social. Creativity doesn’t require solitude, I just wanted to extract the parts of this essay that were helpful for me. I liked reading this fictitious conversation by Rilke, but I’m not about to take it as bible truth and go live in the woods in hopes of being more creative. (And I don’t think he was actually suggesting that either, it seems like he was talking about protecting his work time, like during the day, because it’s an action that worked for him to achieve his goals.) > Programmers are more likely than most to prefer solitude, but even that isn’t a constant. True! And we often want solitude even when it isn’t the best thing. ;) I have watched myself and others go too far away from what is needed in some situations because the requirements weren’t understood well enough, and assumptions were being made, and because it’s super fun to dive into a clever algorithm or data structure, or a learn and implement a fancy technique. Programming in a business setting is a social process and sometimes means checking in with people early and often, iterating, and getting repeated feedback. I got in trouble in my very first industry job when I complained about having to report my progress daily because it took an hour to prepare and interrupted my flow, the note in my file about uncooperativeness stayed around for years. Later I came to believe I was in the wrong because of watching people drift away from the goals without enough talking…