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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

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…
badpun 4y ago
> My partner does a lot of art and frequently draws in social settings. Just as an aside: drawing is just a technical activity, no diferent than programming. It can be creative or pretty rote (just ask any game dev artist working on yet another big guy with an axe) - same as programming. Same with music, btw.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  I'm aware of the overlap between programming and drawing/creative arts, though I don't know if I'd call it as simple as a "technical activity", but yeah my partner and I talk about this all the time, and I watch her work a lot, so I know.

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…

badpun 4y ago

> My partner does a lot of art and frequently draws in social settings. Just as an aside: drawing is just a technical activity, no diferent than programming. It can be creative or pretty rote (just ask any game dev artist working on yet another big guy with an axe) - same as programming. Same with music, btw.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago
I'm aware of the overlap between programming and drawing/creative arts, though I don't know if I'd call it as simple as a "technical activity", but yeah my partner and I talk about this all the time, and I watch her work a lot, so I know.