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Creation happens in silence
- rankvise 4y ago[dead]
- chadlavi 4y agoA ton of creation happens in conversation or collaboration with others, even if this author doesn't think so.
- xyzelement 4y ago[dead]
- malfist 4y agoWith the push to return to office where those offices are over crowded and open, makes me wonder how much these companies are strangling the creativity of their workforce.
- berkle4455 4y agoI find it much easier to focus at the office than at home with my family.
- malfist 4y agoIf that's you, then feel free to return to the office, just don't drag the rest of us who don't work like you to the office because of your family.
- VeninVidiaVicii 4y agoI couldn't agree more. It's disheartening to see that in some workplaces, the organization and support resemble a daycare more than a professional setting. This pattern of behavior involves offloading responsibilities to others to create a productive environment, and it's not an approach that leads to successful outcomes.
- kittyn 4y agoglad to see someone who can call a spade a spade of course this opinion won’t be popular with all the people who just grind for their kids and locked in mortgage
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoYou are comparing the office with working ad-hoc around your family. For remote work to work you really need to build a designated space where you go to for the 'work' part of your day. It could be a part of a bedroom, an attic, a basement, a co-op office, the point is that it must create separation and you also have to explain this separation to your family and ask them to respect it. Just because you are remote doesn't mean you are working 'from home' there is a huge difference perhaps not in distance but in mindset.
- PeterisP 4y agoIt's not that easy to just "create separation" - I can imagine that most people complaining about this have actual lived-in experience about trying to do that for multiple years now since the onset of Covid, and it doesn't work for everyone. "explain this separation to your family and ask them to respect it" implies either some wishful thinking or quite privileged assumptions about this being practically reasonable where you just need to discuss it to make it true. A part of a bedroom plus asking to be left alone (and people trying to do that) does not create a work environment that's even remotely comparable to an office. Again, do be reasonable and assume that everyone who has issues with it has tried all of what you suggested multiple times over the last years and has gotten to a solid conclusion that it doesn't work and the separation at home is not going to happen for their particular situation of family and housing. And if someone needs to work not from home but in an office away from home, most people can't simply afford a proper office if they're not using an employer-provided one.
- eyear 4y ago静者心多妙
- malfist 4y agoGentle reminder that hacker news is an english site, per the rules you should be responding in english so that there is benefit to the group here. The article you're commenting on is also in english.
- dboreham 4y agoGoogle translate works though (at least I think it did...)
- jmbwell 4y agoI suspect posting an arguably relevant comment in its original language was a stylistic choice more than a lapse in memory of this site’s preference for English. That said, a more complete post might indeed have included an English translation, an indicator of the source, and perhaps some other context.
- swayvil 4y agoTRANSLATOR BOT ACTIVATED calm mind that enjoys quietness can often achieve inner peace and deep perception
- andsoitis 4y agogoogle translate says: "what a wonderful mind", so you're just saying "good post"?
- layer8 4y agoAlso written as 靜者心多妙, this seems to be a quote from a poem by famous eighth-century Chinese poet Du Fu [0]. See in [1], where it is translated as “The serene have many marvels in the heart”. This [2] site also lists the translation “With a peaceful mind, you can create wonders”, which maybe works a bit better. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu [1] https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/27423/9781501501890.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/2742... [2] https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/35880967 https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/35880967
- dudul 4y agoNo no no, I've been told many times that creation happens during lunch break at the water cooler! And hard problems are solved by gathering around The Architect at The Whiteboard. /s
- darxist 4y agowhat about music?
- djxfade 4y agoI produce music in my own time. And for me it's the exact same.
- proto-n 4y agoBased on the title alone, you might think that this is about needing silence to be creative. But as far as I understand, the (very short) post is more about the lack of feedback while creating. "While you’re reading this, creative people are working hard now across the world on the next novel, movie, or song you’ll love, and yet, you don’t know anything about it, and they don’t know if you’ll like it either." Also, to react to the post itself, yes to some degree, but also no? Most crative processes involve multiple people going back and forth, giving feedback along the way. Editors, teammates, talking to family, brainstorming, etc. Yeah it's not the final audience, but it's similar. A mind on its own is so so much less creative then two minds interacting.
- M95D 4y agoSounds like product development, not creation (as in creative work).
- taylodl 4y agoProduct development is creation, is it not? Sure, the medium is different and even the process may be different but product development is a creative endeavor.
- lmarcos 4y agoAt least for me, product development is all about the business: you need to get feedback to know you're building the right thing (otherwise you're fired). Whereas when one creates alone, it's all about the pleasure of creating for the sake of it.
- californical 4y agoThere is a creative part of product development though. You need to come up with something to vet with the outside first! Successful product development usually needs more than just the creative process, but it’s not totally absent the upfront creative side either.
- 4y ago
- shrimp_emoji 4y agoA real artist respects the silence as it serves as the foundation of creativity! https://youtu.be/9E62iA6KCIQ https://youtu.be/9E62iA6KCIQ
- swayvil 4y agoWith silence comes clarity. That's a well-known meditation thing. There are lots of ways to get silence : solitude, peaceful lifestyle, concentration... Concentration is a big one. It de-agitates your organs of perception. And it can be taken to profound levels of refinement. And then you see ... deeper. As any scientist/engineer/artist is surely familiar.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoThe article is actually about not knowing how a creative endeavor will be perceived. Not physical silence.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- swayvil 4y agoActually... Oh what's the point.
- flat-pluto 4y agoThe author says silence but means isolation - ".....isolation without any signals or external validation until it’s complete" I'd say this is just the first stage of creating something, an MVP of sorts. After that you do need to get some feedback, iterate and improve it step-by-step to get the finished product.
- josem 4y agoHey! Author here :) It was more a metaphor from that moment when I was writing in fact in silence and the lack of any external input / voice telling me whether something I'm doing is good or bad but I know what you mean, perhaps using "isolation" would have made the article clearer, thanks!
- flat-pluto 4y agoI also knew what you meant but it was more for those people who skip the article and comment based solely on the title. Sidenote - if you can find the time, you should write more often. I just went through your articles and there is a lot of useful advice to be found. The projects are pretty interesting too. Cheers!
- josem 4y agoThank you, you’ve made my day with this comment!
- mrandish 4y agoI also reacted the same way to your write-up. As a professional creative toward the end of a multi-decade career, I interpreted it as describing the initial moment of inception, which for me, tends to come all in a rush after a long period of uninterrupted solitude. However, after the 'aha' realization my creative process turns to first capturing the now-connected pieces, then forming them into some rough first expression and bouncing that off of early collaborators for feedback. This is usually followed by an intense period of creative engagement with others as the initial idea or concept is sharpened and refined from an often messy pile of "not quite it" into something much more like its eventual self. What you described is the often invisible first parts of creation which involve exploring the space, then posing the question or framing the problem and finally stewing on it until the seed of the thing is ready to emerge in that moment of solitude. The best collaborators and producers understand the necessity and shape of this process.
- eternalban 4y agoThe true silent creation is the transformation of the creative human being. Creative activity, specially if it is private, will inevitably transform character. It 'cooks' and may even become tasty. This is the actual fruit of creative effort that is entirely personal (though widely shared via interactions) and in my opinion the sole motivation for being creative beyond the pleasures involved. All else is vanity.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jmbwell 4y agoThis is a concise thought expressed clearly. I fully agree that much of the work of being creative happens in silence, or more specifically, in a state of flow, in which all of the creator’s faculties and energies are directed toward the manifestation of intent. It’s a rare state even for prolific creators. Sure there’s other work to be done, all the administration and logistics of adapting the product to the need, all the business aspects, the mechanical, what have you. But the springing to life of an idea into reality… there’s a species of this that seems to emerge in isolation. For some, and I count myself among this group, the challenge that comes next is in releasing this ore of an idea to its audience or its destination. As soon as you publish it, it’s no longer under your control. People make what they will of it. It may not be what you intended them to make of it. But you can no longer help it. It’s everyone else’s product now. So you can protect it and hold on to it and keep it in its isolation to maintain its reflection of the conditions that created it, or you can release it, and let it find a life of its own. Sometimes that’s scary and sometimes that’s exhilarating. Whatever it is, the moment of silence between it and its creator is something only the creator will have experienced.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- revskill 4y agoSame for destruction ;)
- ysavir 4y agoI'm not sure what the foundation for this is. Some of the best ideas I've had have been developed with other people. Role playing games especially are all about collaborative creation. The viewpoint in the article is nothing but tunnel vision, focusing on what works for them and projecting it out into a rule. I'd wager what the author really means is that to have control over their work, and not having to bend their ideas to develop alongside the ideas of others, requires isolation. And that's something I can relate to. But that isn't about creation, it's about control, and fulfilling your personal vision rather than prioritizing a shared vision.
- wcedmisten 4y agoThis reminds me of Stephen King's reflections from his book "On Writing": > Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it. There's always room for iterative improvement with feedback from others, but you need to first make something you believe in. This kind of clashes with the idea of finding problems to solve for other people, but I frequently see advice to "solve your own problems" first, because you know them better than other people's problems.
- leobg 4y agoApplies to coding, too, I find.
- dandellion 4y agoI don't fully agree with this. While it's true that 90% of everything I create happens in isolation until I publish it, I've also participated in a few Game Jams where the full creative process is very collaborative.
- waynesonfire 4y ago> Creation happens in silence Not according to Amazon and their 3 day return to office policy.
- HPsquared 4y agoI do my best work at night, offline. EDIT: I think in knowledge work, a kind of "sow and harvest" model works well. Going around during the day collects little "seeds" of knowledge which are then synthesized (harvested) in quiet periods of deep work at night.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoSo do I. If I knew how hard it is to square software work with having a family, I'd have chosen a different career track.
- nicbou 4y agoNot quite. A lot of it, no doubts, but I spend more and more time seeking inspiration and querying my peers. I involve other people both as a type of rubber ducking, and as a sanity test.
- hinkley 4y agoMy experience dealing with wrongheaded coworkers is this: The more time you spend isolated working on a problem, the more sunk cost fallacy you experience when people push back on your idea. We have a whole bunch of programming techniques that allow us to make progress and lay groundwork outside of flow state, and then when we are certain that we have the solution, jump in for brief periods and come back out to check in with the world. Saints preserve me from people who disappear for eight hours at a time and expect me to compliment them for their echo chamber work. Software is a team sport, not a painting.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI enjoyed the read. For me, it's similar. Not sure how much it resonates with today's software development zeitgeist, however. It seems that most software development companies believe that creation happens in large, open-plan offices, filled with chattering people.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- marginalia_nu 4y agoI feel like most of my creative problem solving happens when I'm not working on the problem. There seems to be, roughly speaking, a three part process: * A loading phase where I immerse into the problem. This requires silence and concentration. Basically staring at the problem and its various aspects for a few hours. Hmm. What if? No. But maybe. Nope. Hmm. Hmm. The problem will often seem too big to fit in my head. I can sort of fumble and grasp its outline, but I don't see it clearly. * A background processing phase, this requires a sense of almost boredom. I need to step away from the keyboard. A disengagement from further input, from intellectual stimuli in general. I can't distract myself with entertainment either. I must be a bit bored. * All the sudden there will be clarity, deep insight into what needs to be created. Like the microwave going bing, signalling the cooking is ready. I'll solve not only one problem, but half a dozen. The solutions come faster than I can implement them. I need to pace myself and write my ideas down before I implement them. It's a heck of a ride.
- trashymctrash 4y agoVery well put. I love the metaphors, especially the "microwave going bing" :D Just curious: Where would you put "gather input or feedback from peers" in that process?
- marginalia_nu 4y agoI don't think that is part of this process. It's certainly part of engineering, but not this side of creative problem solving. This is way off in the deep end. I guess it may be part of early phase 1 in the sense of immersing myself in the problem space, but often I don't know even know what problem I'm solving. Like, not really know it. The moment of clarity is when the question is revealed and the answer is obvious. It's a real parting of the clouds moment.
- 8note 4y agoPart 1, and after part 3
- rolenthedeep 4y agoThat's step 4. Generally (for me, anyway) the insight is still pretty unformed. Peer input helps refine that idea into something more concise and actionable. It's not always required, but it is always beneficial.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- wpietri 4y agoI am sure this is true for some people in some situations, but the sweeping arrogance of this makes me kinda mad: > any creation happens in isolation without any signals or external validation until it’s complete. [...] Any idea or creative work you can think of happens in silence. [...] This isolation happens in all fields: movies, music, literature, or product development. This is just factually false. A really obvious counterexample is improvisational theater. The creation happens as a team activity in front of an audience. It's absolutely rich with signals. There's nary a pause, let alone silence. The same is obviously true with musical improvisation. And the creation of recorded music can also be deeply collaborative. [1] If you talk with stand-up comedians about their process, they get ideas from all over, but workshopping material with live audiences is a vital part of the process of creation. Movies have storyboards and read-throughs and dailies and reshoots and intense cross-disciplinary collaboration and iteration. [2] Literature has writing groups and readings and editors and friends who read drafts. In product development, we have prototypes and user tests and continuous release and instrumentation and cross-functional teams and short-cycle processes, all of which can drive creativity if we choose. Do some people need silence to create? Sure. Bless them. For those that experience periods of silence, can that be a struggle? Definitely. But the notion of a noble solo genius high on his mountain creating great things is more myth than reality, and it can be a harmful one because it makes a lot of people think they can't be creative, when instead they just need a richer environment. [1] E.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M607TcuKf78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M607TcuKf78 [2] E.g.: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/making-of-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-1235253083/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/maki...
- alt227 4y ago> Do some people need silence to create? Sure. Bless them. I would disagree and say your example is pretty much the only one which works this way, because the process and result requires multiple people to be expressive together. Maybe dance and musical performance might fit the same rough description, but in those the skill required is personal based, and so most of the contributers will be in silence concentrating very hard on their own part and how it fits into the restas opposed to being completely collaborative.
- erulabs 4y agoI notice a lot of the comments here conflate “creation” and “creative problem solving”, and I really think they’re different things. I’m an engineer - so I absolutely love sitting in a room of smart people and hashing out a solution to a hard problem - but that’s different I think than what the author is referring to. Creation, building a wholly new thing, is a different activity than engineering or problem solving, and I agree - requires silence. Creation also implies an increase in the number of problems - maybe that’s why I tend to avoid silence… nice article - I think I’ll turn off YouTube and code in silence today!
- myheadasplode 4y agoThis doesn't track for me at all, and I'm wondering if I'm misunderstanding the point. The mere presence of another person in the room, whether they're contributing and providing feedback or not, generates idea after idea for me. Some of the best ideas I've had have come from sitting in my living room watching my roommate play Rocket League, with us occasionally discussing the game. It feels so difficult and pointless and uninspiring alone that I've considered hiring an intern or apprentice just to sit there in the studio with me. > As painful as it is, any creation happens in isolation without any signals or external validation until it’s complete. This is the exact opposite of my experience writing lyrics. We're all constantly bouncing ideas off of each other, immediately and repeatedly. Speaking the lyrics out loud to someone else to gauge how they'll be received in a song is a go-to method in my circle. And if that's just revision and not creation, well, most of my song ideas stem from random phrases spoken out loud to someone in conversation. > While you’re reading this, creative people are working hard now across the world on the next novel, movie, or song you’ll love, and yet, you don’t know anything about it, and they don’t know if you’ll like it either. I guess this is saying that artists generally don't share half-complete ideas, which is true, but that's because audiences don't do well with filling in the gaps on their own, not because "creation happens in silence". Creation is collaborative and chaotic. If you think I'm misreading this article please let me know! It's a real head scratcher. edit: one exception comes to mind - I'm only inspired around others, but when there's a musical problem to be solved (e.g. how do we go from the chorus to the bridge), we all tend to retreat into our heads to work out possible ideas instead of playing them out loud for people and seeing what sticks.
- pm 4y agoAs you rightly point out, creators don't operate in total isolation: you're constantly taking in the world around you, even in solitude. However, as you've surmised at the end of your comment, there's a difference between sparking an idea and following through on its creation (though they often work in concert).
- kerkeslager 4y agoI don't think you're misreading the article: I think the author is very arrogantly extrapolating his own creative process to all of humanity's creative process.
- worik 4y agoNot for musicians in rock bands. Quite the opposite.....
- DanielBMarkham 4y agoI wrote on this over the weekend in an essay titled "Forced Boredom" A lot of this is standard advice for various creators. I think, however, that it's possible to optimize yourself for the process. I find in my professional life and watching others that there are creative stages which are followed by forgetting these lessons, then re-learning them all over again. Humans are complex machines. Shameless plug: https://danielbmarkham.com/forced-boredom/ https://danielbmarkham.com/forced-boredom/
- evan-buss 4y ago“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.” - John Steinbeck, East of Eden
- bombolo 4y ago> Nothing was ever created by two men debatable.
- codingdave 4y ago"This isolation happens in all fields: movies, music, literature, or product development. But it’s necessary. No one will come and tell you to create something." While a nice ideal, this feels 100% incorrect. All of those are commercial endeavors that have people coming to you telling you to create something. Some of them even come to you with pre-written requirements, scripts, etc. and tell you to create it. Or you have a contract committing you to creating a certain amount of work. Individual periods of creative flow may be done in isolation, that is true. But the article went too far to claim that isolation is a given in creative work.
- kerkeslager 4y agoIt's a bit arrogant to assume that your creative process is everyone's creative process. I sometimes need silence for periods of intense concentration, but that's really not sustainable for me and more often I need collaboration to create, bouncing ideas off other people and getting feedback and additional ideas. This doesn't work as well for really intricate sorts of creativity, but the reality is that, for me, the majority of creativity isn't that. I particularly had to chuckle when the OP mentions music. Sure, they don't directly say it gets created in silence, but they do say it happens in isolation, which is true in some cases, but just isn't true for the vast majority of bands. Even creation which has little to do with sound, such as novel-writing, is often done with sound and collaboration: if you read enough about writing you'll discover that many novelists seek other novelists to discuss ideas with, or you'll find that certain novels were written while listening to certain albums. Of course, some creation does happen in silence and isolation.
- pklausler 4y agoI get ideas and find solutions in many environments, but never in places where I can hear people speaking, like high-density open-plan office hellscapes.
- Aeolun 4y agoIn silence? You haven’t gone back to the office yet have you? Creation happens in a bunch of noise and distractions.
- andsoitis 4y agoSilence, in this context, is a metaphor. It’s the degree to which your attention can be focused and does not experience or react to disturbances to the void from within and from without.
- unrealp 4y agoDoesnt even culture develop in isolation? take for example the aspect of language. Our world has so many languages, which developed at the time when there was very little communication. If communication was very smooth, like today, only handful of languages dominate. New languages are not evolving and older ones are getting diluted. If information flows smoothly, cultural trends spread very quickly. There would be small mini-trends which never get chance to evolve. Isolation would help people evolve and refine these mini-trends, evolving as cultural trends. I am not a isolationist. Just stating observation.
- exodust 4y ago> "I will only know if you’ll like this article once I publish it." I don't like it. For starters, the length is only slightly longer than a handful of tweets. Barely qualifying as an "article", it ends abruptly, without really saying anything. Almost like someone called out "dinner is ready", and because the article wasn't going anywhere, he just ended it with "we don't care". > "As painful as it is..." Painful? How is it painful? A more interesting article would elaborate on this pain. The irony here is that nothing has really been "created" with this piece. It's like a comment. This comment I'm writing here in painful silence, has more substance than the article in question!
- drewcoo 4y agoI can't think, let alone create, or even copulate, in silence. I need that constant thrum to block out so I can focus and really put out the good stuff. Maybe you're not everyone and should shut the f up while the rest of us enjoy the non-negative noise all around us.
- challenger-derp 4y agoThe preference for silence may not be universal. John Von Neumann, a highly regarded scientist, appears to prefer noisy environments according to his Wikipedia entry [1]: In Princeton, he [John Von Neumann] received complaints for regularly playing extremely loud German march music on his phonograph, which distracted those in neighboring offices, including Albert Einstein, from their work. Von Neumann did some of his best work in noisy, chaotic environments, and once admonished his wife for preparing a quiet study for him to work in. He never used it, preferring the couple's living room with its television playing loudly. References [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
- shantnutiwari 4y agoThats a great article. And Im surprised how its being mis-represented here. I agree with the author(As a blogger and fiction writer)-- you have to do your work alone, and then just put it out there. Sure you can get feedback once you have something polished (I dont but I know some peole like to), but the actual creative process has to be done by yourself. It is hard and lonely, but you have to push thru it if you want to get something done