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

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…