Creativity Changes as We Age
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thewalrus.ca
I don't think I could have done that even ten years ago. There's a perspective you get, kind of a postmodernism, where you both understand the topics and the common ways of addressing them, then are able to move past that. I guess geniuses reach that point in their teens. It might take a bit longer for the rest of us :)
There's a thing I see with younger tech authors where they don't want to admit it, but they're for the most part chasing fame. That's a different kind of creativity. I never was good at that and it hasn't gotten much better, either. Perhaps you need a good foundation in order to "bloom" eventually?
I'm sorry, I didn't go to art school myself. I was alergic to art school culture, so I transferred to computer science. But I've been in and around lots of artist groups over the years. Even made a small business out of making installations for artists, for a short while. (That's a while other thing. Big Art artists often don't make their own things. They're more like producers or project managers than technicians).
The one thing that struck as the big difference between the artists who were making it and the ones who were struggling was really just their social group. The ones who were making it came from rich families, knew art dealers, and were getting invited to the "popular" artist parties.
At least, that was the case for "fine" art, artists selling a small number of high-value pieces. The other way to make it was to make a large number of populist pieces, for mass production, and then hustle hard on the craft fair circuit. If they could build a following that way and refine their process to cut costs to the bar minimum, then they could maybe explode selling online.
But just going to art school, being really creative and a master of craft, and hoping someone will discover you... Never seen it happen.
It's interesting, because I think it actually has a lot of parallels to open source software. You don't really get big in OSS by making a cool program. You have to market the shit out of it. And about the only way to do that in a way that OSS users aren't allergic to is networking on the public speaking circuit, knowing lots of other popular developers, getting them to use your software.
Banksy did not rely on meeting people, quite the opposite.
There's a documentary called the price of everything of a man who spent a decade with his wife in his secluded art studio producing a new art technique and came back in 2015-2016 to 'turn in his work' and made bank.
There's more to art than nepotism.
> There's more to art than nepotism.
Fortunately yes.
The social circle thing is so prevalent that most artist I've met that sell regularly spend about as much or more time networking as they do making art. Most folks are just stuck having luck enough to sell from time to time, especially if they are outliers and not doing things that match many living rooms.
> In areas of human activity where performance is difficult to quantify in an objective fashion, reputation and networks of influence play a key role in determining access to resources and rewards. To understand the role of these factors, we reconstructed the exhibition history of half a million artists, mapping out the coexhibition network that captures the movement of art between institutions. Centrality within this network captured institutional prestige, allowing us to explore the career trajectory of individual artists in terms of access to coveted institutions. Early access to prestigious central institutions offered life-long access to high-prestige venues and reduced dropout rate. By contrast, starting at the network periphery resulted in a high dropout rate, limiting access to central institutions. A Markov model predicts the career trajectory of individual artists and documents the strong path and history dependence of valuation in art.
- Although these books are meant to help people who develop technology, frankly I'm not interested in what the average developer has to say about them. I wouldn't have liked some of my conclusions either had I read about them 20 years ago
- I have deliberately priced my books to only sell to people interested and dedicated in reading them This is the only reason I'm replying to you: I wouldn't want somebody else to go find the books and then start a flame war based on my price. If you can't afford it but are dedicated to learning, ping me. We'll work something out. Otherwise yeah, it's crazy high compared to the "Learn You Some Javascript in Five Hours" free YouTube-based courseware.
And David, good call on the price. I wouldn't respect anyone who would begrudge you the price of your most hard-won knowledge, esp when it sounds like you do consulting.
I think it works but postmodernism is a hotly discussed word that will break a reader from their flow. It definitely broke me out and made me think about how it could be applied here, so if that was your intent it worked. I always enjoy the tactical use of literary “flexes” like semi-colons, large words, etc. when they are done fully understanding their impact.
Modernism was a architectural and philosophical trend that peaked in the 50s. It really got started a few decades earlier than that. Think of uniform apartment blocks: modernist architecture in action. It was a sense that we were finding the universal laws of everything and we could make things equal and fair via uniform architecture for example.
Postmodernism was a critique of that and a deconstruction. Modernist ideas didn’t work all the time and for everyone.
If you’re referring to “now” the word you can use is contemporary. Meaning “along side”. This works for more things eg: “Albert Einstein corresponded extensively with his contemporaries.” Or “I dislike contemporary architecture”.
OP's use of the word postmodernism doesn't really make sense, as a general rule. Many people get to the end of a topic and don't fall into questioning and desconstructing our modern and historical narratives. Many people can see an end to a topic and seek to add onto it or move on without destruction, a natural completion. Being done with the topic for life. Maybe OP is showing an affinity for stepping outside our normal social bounds for a new perspective via pomo and I don't think he meant that.
And my favorite simple way to define it is:
modernism - post industrial revolution enthusiasm about humanity
postmodernism - post ww2 depression about humanity
Sorry guys. No flex intended. It was only a metaphor.
Modernism is the idea that we've discovered all of the ways of doing things from nature and now we're just honing in on doing those better. My subject was "How people interact with the technology they create". In this sense, whether it's process, coding, UI or whatnot, most everything you read is just another example of old standards we've had for decades: structured code, CMMI, RUP, XP, FP, and so on. Whatever you pick, the idea is that there are already pre-discovered and well-trodden paths ahead of you. The message from modernism is "Don't worry; we've figured it all out. This is the way it should be."
Continuing the metaphor, postmodernism is a critique of each of these from a standpoint of tearing them apart by way of understanding what's good and what's bad about each. It's certainly not a rejection of modernism by any means. It's simply an understanding of the various modern paths and what's wrong with each of them. In its classic sense, postmodernism is a way of deeply understanding and critiquing, many times by creating new works to contrast with the old methods, in order that the overall field can move forward. It's not a path of its own
Maybe this is where we ventured off-course. The word "postmodernism" has come to mean the universal tearing apart of anything that is traditional, ie deconstructionism. That was not my intent at all. In my mind, postmodernism at its best is a severe recognition of the flaws of various modern techniques as a way of honestly dealing with them, the challenging of the idea that everything important has all figured out from nature, not the tearing apart of western civilization. It's an analytical technique, which can involve creating new works of its own to show contrast. In its purest form it shouldn't be a movement, fetish, fad, or any of the things many of the practitioners and detractors squabble about.
Agreed that it could be a trigger word for many, especially how it's used today. That was not my intent. I'm just used to the deeper and more traditional use of the word. It honestly didn't occur to me what all that it's evolved into. I knew better and just wasn't thinking. Apologies for the confusion.
https://qz.com/1606423/the-two-types-of-creativity-peak-at-v...
They'd see it as "making an impact [and standing to benefit from that]." Not casting judgment here. It's just that the motive really decides how you focus your time, which determines the outcome and the types of things you work on.
HN seems to be preoccupied with this notion of whether something is relevant. Thing is, as you get older, that is less of a draw, as your life experience shows you how to evaluate things beyond what other people say about them.
I think the best way I can describe it is that it changed for me from my 20s, where I was driven by what I wanted to do — the end result — and along the way, would pick up the knowledge needed.
It’s similar now, but it’s more driven by what I can learn along the way and how I can connect it to everything else. Experience has shown me that more things are related than you think. And I feel like drawing these connections has made me think across disciplines and to try to connect things in multiple ways during the process, which has the side effect of creative solutions or accidental findings along the way.
I have dozens of pages of notes and snippets and am constantly adding — things I could make, topics I want to learn about. The amount can be overwhelming, but it’s also liberating to write them down so that I can move on, and I feel like even doing that sort of validates that I’m “being creative” and keeping juices flowing.
Don’t get me wrong — these are not world-changing ideas. But I’ve found that letting those flow has let little solutions or ideas here and there flow easily in the midst of bigger problems.
It also helps to have internalized the idea that the value is in the execution, not the idea. This is typified by a client who wants you to sign an NDA to hear about what their idea even is. That’s a red flag that they think the golden egg is the idea itself and not the months or years, as well as discipline in saying no to a million little things, that will bring a good version of that idea to life.
I totally understand what you mean here.
In my early 20s I was into electronic music and I wanted to make music like my idols. I was really more in love with the idea of doing it, or the end result, than the actual act of doing it. Because of that, I didn't really know anything about synths, synthesis, playing an instrument, etc. Which, ironically, are the fundamental skills needed to be able to actually do the damn thing.
Maybe if I had had someone to guide me it would have been different. Most of my friends were in rock bands, and those who were into electronic music production were just as lost as me. These days with Youtube it's a lot easier, everyone sharing their tricks and techniques.
[0] https://www.boredpanda.com/alzheimers-disease-self-portrait-...
If you're well past 50 (approaching 60 or beyond), what would you tell your 50 year old self and peers?
Buy AMZN.
Basically, my younger creativity was Jackson Pollock; splashing around a lot, with few boundaries, and my current creativity is a bit more like a scrimshaw artist; carefully making each line count, in a restricted and prescribed manner and medium.
A lot of the stuff I'm working on now, is stuff that just plain wouldn't have been possible -at all, when I was younger.
Basically, I have a great baseline for getting stuff done. I may not have the wild forest of creativity I once had, but what I imagine does actually end up existing, and at a pretty good quality level, and, sometimes, at a pretty sizable scope.
[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/cruft/ArtistWithBadHair.jpg
[1] https://littlegreenviper.com/cruft/MusicianWithBadHair.jpg
From the age of 6 I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75 I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am 80 you will see real progress. At 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100, I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before.
Unfortunately he only made it to 90.
The quote is from Hokusai Katsushika, the artist behind the famous Great Wave print: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/314154-from-the-age-of-6-i-...
https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Steven-Pressfield-ebook/dp/B0...
"Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24527978
You know that a young person didn't post that. If it was a young person, it's a rather sad one.
Also, I'm beginning to think that social media is getting worse or more toxic, not because of ads/privacy/etc, but because the demographics is getting older. Not only that, I bet the demands for more censorship online correlates to the aging demographics online.
e.g. pop music, maths, poetry, physics, etc; you're done by 30. Writers/composers maybe another 10 years or so.
I say that not to be negative, but to urge any young readers who feel they have a talent to not be complacent and assume they will be an exception, or that its related to family/financial/work commitments when you see the decline in your heroes and you will just avoid all that.
Use it before you lose it!
Mathematics is a young people game, though. Very rare to push out significant results after forty.
I haven't dug in, just noticed it's age at the time of award, not time of achievement.
Eg Einstein early 20s for most of his stuff, early 30s for GR. Awarded in his 40s.
I was the most productive in music and painting during my 20s but I lived with the constant angst that I was running out of time and needed to get results as soon as possible. This was totally counterproductive. I understand now to produce better art you need to be totally focused in the process, and not the end result, or even worse, the consequences of the end result (fame, criticism, etc).
A pragmatic compromise to acknowledge it and manage your limited time in a psychologically healthy way.
I always see my creativity taper off when I stop paying close attention and I stop practicing the fundamentals. I think #1 gets harder because our downtime for reflection is often saturated by the busyness and distractions of life, and #2 gets harder because of physical aging in general.
Either way, the brain is creative in the same way the heart is for circulating blood. Continue shoveling in raw materials to the furnace of the mind and it will continue to faithfully churn out novel concepts.
We are trying to understand the cognitive nuances from the distribution of people that can be creative.
You are reacting to a correlation, likely driven by changing obligations.