The World Belongs to Those Who Create

There's truth to this post but overall I think it's pretty naive.

In a capitalist system the world belongs to those who own and have spare capital to invest vs. those who rent.

Being very good at creating things is a potential pathway from renter to owner, but so is being very good at maintaining things, or managing people, etc. Anything which you can be paid a lot of money for will do.

"We are strangers in this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to escape by self-murder; for we are the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our escape. In this life, there are three kinds of men, just as there are three sorts of people who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest class is made up of those who come to buy and sell, the next above them are those who compete. Best of all, however, are those who come simply to look on. The greatest purification of all is, therefore, disinterested science, and it is the man who devotes himself to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the 'wheel of birth.'" Burnet on the Pythagorean ethic, Early Greek Philosophy

The author of the article is very engrossed in modern values. Don't let her adamance that creators control the world frighten you into churning away at something like knitting block chain encoded socks, or worse writing horror novels. The world is beyond the control of any creator anyway, even Mark Zuckerberg if you'll believe me. I think a lot of people find, after years of creating or struggling to create, it's best (or just good) to consume and contemplate without regret.

We’ve delegated the larger part of our days on earth to consuming what someone else has created. [...] I told him my favorite example of those who “figure it out” are rappers who are criticized for being talentless but still rake in millions. Who cares if they’re talentless (by someone’s standards)? At least they are still CREATING something! Lil Wayne [...] has released 1,747 songs

So the idea is make lots of stuff, but avoid consuming all of the stuff that other people create...though should everyone follow this ideology it would be infeasible to make content prolifically because it relies on consumption to drive the next creation.

Is there a middle ground, like practice your creativity prolifically but only publish your best so that the world is inspiring rather than a mire of half thought-out, tepid excrement? Maybe all of this shit clogging up the TV and internet is what leaves the masses drooling on themselves.

This post really resonated with me, deeply. I've been having almost exactly the same thoughts that the author has had, lately.

I think a lot of us underestimate how essential creative self-expression is to our well being. I've come to the realization that I don't want to just live a regular life, working and consuming, but rather I want to contribute something creative, of my own creation, to the world. Deep inside, I think most people will find their greatest joy in building and creating new things (out of love (and not just as a means of survival)).

There's no doubt that incredible amounts of time are "wasted" by all of our quick dopamine hit apps and sites. These are the new opiate of the masses.

It seems to be something we are all aware of, and we talk of unplugging. Some do, here and there. It's a constant struggle. The new cigarette / snack food. Just as hard to quit - but we should all at least try.

History demonstrates otherwise.

The world belongs to those who can extract, or create rent-extracting systems and networks.

"Creators" probably the least well-served of any labour cateogory, relative to their contribution.

Straight-up wage labour is also under-served, and often below the point of sustenance, but it's the contribution ratio I'm looking at.

In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark (UC Davis) lists the inventors responsible for the first Industrial Revolution. Of eight or so inventors, 3-4 died in poverty, another 3-4 survived only on other activities, or through legislative compensation. Only one or two actually profited by the work they're known for.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/farewell-to-alms-a-brief-econo...

Vaclav Smil points out that the diesel engine and gas turbine are the two prime movers most responsible for all modern power production (either motive or electrical). Otto Diesel committed suicide after financial ruin. Parsons, inventor of the gas turbine, did relatively well, but failed to be recognised for the vast bulk of benefit for his work, which was posthumous.

Creativity is fun, it's intellectually rewarding. Don't think for a moment that market economies offer remunerative compensation with anything resembling consistency, rationality, or proportionality.

This is spot on. I share this worldview too.

Here are my thoughts I try to live by:

1. Know the type of person you are:

We are all creatives and contributors at our core. We all measure our self-worth by how much we give instead of how much we take. This is part of our natural human wiring - to want to belong deservingly to a village of individuals who pull their own weight. So, if you are not creating in your natural sphere of strengths, or you don't feel you're contributing to feel worthy of your own esteem you need to sit down and think. Fix this immediately.

2. Be prolific:

To be good at whatever you're creating or contributing, you have to be prolific. Genuine quality comes only through quantity. A shit ton of it. Keep hacking, keep swimming, keep sucking.

3. Judge progress, not outcomes:

Judge your own evolution. Have I done better than yesterday? Do I suck less than last year? Yeah? You are golden. The dangers of comparing your own outcomes with someone else's is that you betray and cheapen your own timeline, your own history, your hard struggles and the victories over your own debilitating handicaps. Appreciating your history as the backdrop of every milestone is the essence of healthy self-esteem.

Just keep swimming.

Great post. I just disabled my Facebook account. It was my most visited and least enjoyed site. It is really refreshing to not be constantly opening it. This article really helped frame how I'm feeling about it. I think it's time to cut more consumption out of my life to free up time for making things. I have so many ideas. I don't need to be consuming video game content for hours a day.

While I agree with the overall point of the author, one thing not pointed out is that she is comparing the greats of the past (or current) to the average person. These people are/were great, not the least because they spent that much time at their work that they produce. To put it another way, there were many more (vast majority even?) people from the past, before technology, who spent their time just as unproductively as the average person nowadays. They may not be consuming content on the internet, but they could just be chatting in person, watching the sceneries, or more likely just doing labor work. Preparing food or doing laundry could be a whole day of work when you don't have technology.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't wonder where all the time went for the modern individual compared to the times before technology. Do spend time more productively and create stuff, which is good.

If you enjoy creating things, that's great. But I am not quite convinced of the inherent good of creating, being a "maker", etc. This can often be quite a consumptive activity, actually, depending on what you make.

Edit: on further thought, I feel I should stress that the world belongs to us all.

I think the author is wondering why everyone is not a creator or making an effort at becoming one. IMO the world is never meant to be a place exclusively for creators.

> And the smaller part creating for someone else to make money to continue to consumer what someone else is creating.

So, unbeknownst to yourself, you’re saying the world belongs to someone else, not the creators, and this contradicts with the title of your blog post. Moreover, on one’s own, one cannot create all things that one wants or needs to consume. It would be supernatural. Since time immemorial, people have been creating things for others to consume and consuming what others have been creating. The world is fueled by mutual reliance.

> Why is this an issue?

It’s not unusual for people in marketing to create an issue out of nowhere :)

It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

The only meaningful thing to do in this world is to create, there is nothing else.

It's a false dichotomy. Creating by copying and referencing is quite trivial now. We do it all the time and think nothing of it.

Creating original designs, giving them a lot of thought and attention, responding to feedback, and changing workflow as a result, that's still hard. And there are a lot of ways in which you can come up with an innovative spin on old stuff - presentation, cataloging, filtering, recommending, explaining - that isn't "creative output" in the sense we are romanticizing, but provides the same kinds of effect on knowledge.

the problem is the definition of make and create and what has value has changed.

10 thousand years ago people celebrated when a big kill was brought home from the hunt.

5000 years ago people celebrated the seasonal harvests.

100 years ago you put in a good days work at a factory turning a screw but you helped make a car.

today if it's not novel or unique it's not celebrated or valued.

Great write up! I wish I had have known this when I was younger.

If you feel this way start by working on small projects to completion. Everyone starts somewhere.

I think that any individual, who does some work creating/building a product/feature goes will identify themselves with the ideas presented in this article. However, the world actually belongs those who can get others to create and build. These usually are the people who have access to capital and use it to generate more capital.

This could possibly be the most impactful thing many of us, here, have read (consumed) recently. Bookmarked.

How about a slight shift in thinking? "Self-fulfilment belongs to those who create"... and perhaps try to think "the world belongs to everyone" instead.

Agree with the overall intention of the post though.

If you sleep 6 hours instead of 8, you gain about a day every 2 weeks.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not a fact.

Well, then that's a real shame then for people without creative impulses and or skills.

Create more, but responsibly.