Create Something Every Day(medium.com)
medium.com
Create Something Every Day
https://medium.com/thoughts-on-creativity/723d7e73b9bd
4 comments
I have a friend who argues with me regarding creativity. He believes wholeheartedly in the "muse visit", this magical time when everything lines up right with the world and creativity leaps from one's mind like Athena, fully formed and ready to go to battle. Of course, he's never created anything in his life.
People who have never done much writing or art see creativity as some sort of mystic angel, a divine power that visits on a whim. But in reality, discipline almost always comes before motivation. The great writers and artists would write early in the morning or late into the night every single day.
Creating something every day doesn't mean "create something fantastic every day". It doesn't even mean to complete something every day. But by attempting it every day, you form the routine that seems to be required to create truly great stuff.
People who have never done much writing or art see creativity as some sort of mystic angel, a divine power that visits on a whim. But in reality, discipline almost always comes before motivation. The great writers and artists would write early in the morning or late into the night every single day.
Creating something every day doesn't mean "create something fantastic every day". It doesn't even mean to complete something every day. But by attempting it every day, you form the routine that seems to be required to create truly great stuff.
I think creative people are not those who get the "muse visit", as you say, but people who are stimulated by the million mundane steps involved in one work of creation. Those who enjoy each of a thousand brushes of sandpaper, who revel in refactoring, who can feel the static energy of mixing just the right color of paint, who bask in the glory of a perfectly selected word.
This is a kind of cool method of creativity, used by Hemingway: http://www.secondactive.com/2009/08/boost-your-productivity-...
Rich Hickey would like to disagree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc
But I'd like to add something to the mantra: Creativity should be not measured by pure outcome. One should be more observant of one's own ability of interaction and choice. When I try to simply produce something everyday, I see myself restricted to the easy, the obvious choice, and I am oh so curious in pushing something to the net, and be happy. But if I take care to paint, maybe not everyday, maybe sometimes the whole day, the outcome has much more to say than just an objectified output of a basic human condition, namely to create art.