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every prolific creator i've seen in practice has been a far more indulgent consumer than the average person. that, and in the chicken and egg of inspiration and

every prolific creator i've seen in practice has been a far more indulgent consumer than the average person. that, and in the chicken and egg of inspiration and production, i've found that production is usually wrung out of a surplus of inspiration. it genuinely surprises me how popular and intuitive this "create more than you consume" meme is

kcrwfrd_ 3y ago
Well, if you spend 8 hours creating something meaningful… like working on your startup, building a deck for your backyard, creating some art, or preparing a nice meal… it is quite intuitive that you will feel much more content and self-satisfied than if you had spent 8 hours flicking through Instagram and TikTok, binge watching TV, and ordering food for delivery. So I guess it depends on what you mean by “create” and “consume,” and how you measure them.
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  I think they might mean something like authors read a lot of books in order to hone their craft.
- deathtrader666 3y ago
  >>> spent 8 hours flicking through Instagram and TikTok, binge watching TV, and ordering food for delivery. That's surfing / grazing.
Zambyte 3y ago
I think the "I've seen" is the key part of your comment. This article is about creating for yourself, not even for consumption by others. It makes sense that you've seen people who create that are also big consumers, because you've seen people who create for consumers. Other creative people may not be so obvious.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > This article is about creating for yourself, not even for consumption by others. Probably about 75% of everything I create, I create for myself. Nobody else is ever likely to see any of it. The act of creating is its own reward (being able to have and use the thing is a reward as well, of course), and I've found that sharing my creations comes with an inherent cost in terms of time: answering questions, support, or even just people wanting to talk about the thing. Also, the level of polish I need to put into a thing in order to feel OK about sharing it will easily double the amount of time it will take to create it. It gets expensive. As a result, I only share those things that I deem important to share.
Affric 3y ago
Yep. This is so fucking true. You need an intellectual/cultural life to be creative. People to copy from. Imagine an author told you they had written more words than they had ever read? You’d think them mad.
nxobject 3y ago
Not just an indulgent consumer, but a more analytical consumer, too.
coldtea 3y ago
>every prolific creator i've seen in practice has been a far more indulgent consumer than the average person You'd be surprised. It's a common cliche in musician interviews for example that they don't listen to other music for large stretches of time. Authors do read more than the average person, but the average person wouldn't read to save their life (the average american reads like 1 book per year according to stats I've seen)
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  I write quite a lot (finishing my 9th book by now), but I read orders of magnitude more. Perhaps 100 times as much, roughly, when considering my younger years, when I didn't write at all and only read voraciously.
dfxm12 3y ago
Proper creators don't need to be reminded to create. I think this meme is targeting everyone else - anything that gets them to create more is OK, whether the meme is 100% accurate or not. The article says Spending hours watching cooking shows won’t make you a better cook—cooking will. I disagree - there has to be some kind of give and take. You don't want to isolate yourself and try to reinvent the wheel in terms of cooking. On the other hand, you can consume cooking media, or food, for entertainment or for entertainment and to learn/get new ideas. To put it another way, I'm not going to just figure out PowerShell if you give me an ISE and a few weeks. Give me an ISE a few weeks, stack exchange, Microsoft documentation, etc. and I will.
- sfn42 3y ago
  I think that statement is spot on. To draw a parallel, I see people spend hours and hours watching programming videos, and at the end they can't do a thing on their own. You should spend more time doing the thing than you spend watching videos about the thing. Or at least do the thing regularly. Doesn't mean videos can't help, but I'm pretty sure they feel like they help a lot more than they actually do.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >The article says Spending hours watching cooking shows won’t make you a better cook—cooking will. I disagree - there has to be some kind of give and take. There's definitely a balance, and as you identify I think the point is to target the extreme that will spend hundreds of hours on cooking videos and no time actually coooking for themselves. At that point it's consumption for consumptions sake than as a means to progress oneself. But sure, you need to consume to learn as well. No one should go into a terminal and expect to just know all the hundreds of built-in commands (let alone package managers to grab millions more). A manual traditionally doesn't help identify what commands are needed to start gaining proficiency either. That's what courses/tutorials excel in, to make you better at reading those man pages later on after practice with some fundamentals.

kcrwfrd_ 3y ago

Well, if you spend 8 hours creating something meaningful… like working on your startup, building a deck for your backyard, creating some art, or preparing a nice meal… it is quite intuitive that you will feel much more content and self-satisfied than if you had spent 8 hours flicking through Instagram and TikTok, binge watching TV, and ordering food for delivery. So I guess it depends on what you mean by “create” and “consume,” and how you measure them.

Apocryphon 3y ago
I think they might mean something like authors read a lot of books in order to hone their craft.
deathtrader666 3y ago
>>> spent 8 hours flicking through Instagram and TikTok, binge watching TV, and ordering food for delivery. That's surfing / grazing.

Zambyte 3y ago

I think the "I've seen" is the key part of your comment. This article is about creating for yourself, not even for consumption by others. It makes sense that you've seen people who create that are also big consumers, because you've seen people who create for consumers. Other creative people may not be so obvious.

JohnFen 3y ago
> This article is about creating for yourself, not even for consumption by others. Probably about 75% of everything I create, I create for myself. Nobody else is ever likely to see any of it. The act of creating is its own reward (being able to have and use the thing is a reward as well, of course), and I've found that sharing my creations comes with an inherent cost in terms of time: answering questions, support, or even just people wanting to talk about the thing. Also, the level of polish I need to put into a thing in order to feel OK about sharing it will easily double the amount of time it will take to create it. It gets expensive. As a result, I only share those things that I deem important to share.

Affric 3y ago

Yep. This is so fucking true. You need an intellectual/cultural life to be creative. People to copy from. Imagine an author told you they had written more words than they had ever read? You’d think them mad.

nxobject 3y ago

Not just an indulgent consumer, but a more analytical consumer, too.

coldtea 3y ago

>every prolific creator i've seen in practice has been a far more indulgent consumer than the average person You'd be surprised. It's a common cliche in musician interviews for example that they don't listen to other music for large stretches of time. Authors do read more than the average person, but the average person wouldn't read to save their life (the average american reads like 1 book per year according to stats I've seen)

inglor_cz 3y ago
I write quite a lot (finishing my 9th book by now), but I read orders of magnitude more. Perhaps 100 times as much, roughly, when considering my younger years, when I didn't write at all and only read voraciously.

dfxm12 3y ago

Proper creators don't need to be reminded to create. I think this meme is targeting everyone else - anything that gets them to create more is OK, whether the meme is 100% accurate or not. The article says Spending hours watching cooking shows won’t make you a better cook—cooking will. I disagree - there has to be some kind of give and take. You don't want to isolate yourself and try to reinvent the wheel in terms of cooking. On the other hand, you can consume cooking media, or food, for entertainment or for entertainment and to learn/get new ideas. To put it another way, I'm not going to just figure out PowerShell if you give me an ISE and a few weeks. Give me an ISE a few weeks, stack exchange, Microsoft documentation, etc. and I will.

sfn42 3y ago
I think that statement is spot on. To draw a parallel, I see people spend hours and hours watching programming videos, and at the end they can't do a thing on their own. You should spend more time doing the thing than you spend watching videos about the thing. Or at least do the thing regularly. Doesn't mean videos can't help, but I'm pretty sure they feel like they help a lot more than they actually do.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>The article says Spending hours watching cooking shows won’t make you a better cook—cooking will. I disagree - there has to be some kind of give and take. There's definitely a balance, and as you identify I think the point is to target the extreme that will spend hundreds of hours on cooking videos and no time actually coooking for themselves. At that point it's consumption for consumptions sake than as a means to progress oneself. But sure, you need to consume to learn as well. No one should go into a terminal and expect to just know all the hundreds of built-in commands (let alone package managers to grab millions more). A manual traditionally doesn't help identify what commands are needed to start gaining proficiency either. That's what courses/tutorials excel in, to make you better at reading those man pages later on after practice with some fundamentals.