JACK CAPSTICK-DALE
Exhortations.
How much do you consume relative to what you create? There is something special about creating.
One aspect is the moments of joy when things work out. Writing an article or coding an app or repairing a car involves a host of tiny successes. This is often some moment of clarity. There's also satisfaction in working against entropy. You've created something from nothing; an independent entity that contains your effort and essence. It's like having a photograph of happy times with your friends. The satisfaction is much greater if someone else uses your creation.
But most of the time you don't feel happy. My dominating sense is of being confused. There could be difficulty in articulating an idea, not understanding how your project works (or indeed why it isn't!) You're underwater and don't know which direction to swim for air. So why do it? Because it feels right. You're stretched to the limit of your capacity. You're alive and awake. Once you develop a taste for creating it's hard to stop.
G. H. Hardy had the taste for creating. But when I read A Mathematician's Apology I felt he hadn't expanded on his points. Indeed, I think his criticism of the critic (above) misses a few points...
You think you fell out of a coconut tree?
Hardy gets caught up in the myth of the isolated genius, who's theorems flow ab initio from their mind. But no-one creates in isolation. There is no fallow ground in the arts and science. All has been tilled; the creator builds on what came before. In a crucial sense, all creative and original work is explication and exposition and criticism and appreciation. Departures depart from somewhere.
Interstitial sites
Writing about writing is still writing. It is open to brilliance and style and innovation. Connections are often made between bodies of work that are not visible to those who worked on them individually. This was the central tenet in my Natural Science degrees: discoveries are found in unexpected places, especially between fields. Original work comes from looking at problems from different angles.
Make something people want
Genius creates, but taste preserves. A work's contribution is downstream of its distribution. The question is to what extent inherent value guarantees distribution. The received wisdom in the startup world is that a work's ability to be distributed is a measure of its inherent value. YCombinator's maxim is 'make something people want'. Success is inevitable if the market is free enough. I agree with this sentiment more than my peer group, but know the inversion is truer. One maximises chances of distribution through inherent value; it would be facetious to suggest success is guaranteed. That's clear enough from a history of brilliant works. It's almost a trope for brilliant works to be almost undiscovered: Robert Pirsig was rejected by 121 publishers. The link between value and distribution is fragile; there are undiscovered gems abound. Curation is a noble pursuit.
Curation is the gateway from consumption to creation
When I teach young children I get them to create a list of their favourite things. This ranges from books to games to a keyboard collection. I then get them to explain why they feel these are the most beautiful things they've found. The curation of objects shifts the child's framing from passive to active. They begin to write their own stories, design games and build keyboards.
What happens when we're all creating and no-one is consuming? A maximalist mess? A cocophany of sound without ears? You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? No-one creates in isolation. We collect, expand, remix; become inspired and inspire others.
That was a long form introduction to some of my favourite things!
Do you have a good idea for another list? Let me know!