Ignore Everybody.
gapingvoid.com
gapingvoid.com
It's basically about startups from the point of view of an artist but every point translates perfectly to software.
Great read.
34. Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.
I guess it is different with coding: If you like to code, maybe there is no problem in doing it also as a daily job (arguably).
I started coding when I was around 10. I wrote software every day for 12 years, enthralled and eager to try new things. I learned every language I could get my hands on. When it became a job, I lost all my passion for it. I quit coding for 10 years. Not a single line. I decided to become an automotive mechanic instead...
Today, I'm in IT and my creative outlet is board games. I not only play them, but I design them as well. Last year I licensed my first game and suddenly this dream that I have always had of being published was fulfilled. My first instinct was to embrace that success and use the boost to create more success. I had to pause. I was trying to force success again.
The difference this time was that I realized quickly that I was trying to monetize a hobby. Forget it. I'm not abandoning passionate game design for money. It's just not worth it.
Money doesn't motivate me at all. It is a means of surviving without self-sustaining. I cut my pay in half to become an automotive mechanic and it was the greatest move I ever made. I was no longer working for the dollar, I was working for the joy of fixing things. Literally overnight I became poor and happy simultaneously.
I can imagine. I designed my own book. Now every time I pick up a book I habitually look at the design before I read it. It is annoying as all get out. But at least I didn't become a font designer :-P
It's just not the same delightful experience doing it for someone else as it is doing it for my own enjoyment.
I shot a wedding for a couple in the church who could not afford a professional wedding photographer. One of the most stressful experiences of my life. I promised myself I would never shoot another wedding.
(Now, as a pastor, I can tell you that I found performing a wedding ceremony to be less stressful than photographing one. Go figure.)
With a hobby, the simple act of doing it is the reward, and when money becomes the reward given to you by someone else, all of a sudden it becomes work. Hobbies are fun. Work is rewarding (and sometimes fun). But rarely do the two intersect. I think the point is if you can't find your hobby rewarding and/or you can't do it for 8+ hours a day, every day, then it shouldn't be your job.
These are hard topics to write about, because inspiring talk quickly slides into feel-goodness which is dangerously close to the black hole of complacency: one false move and you get sucked in. What Hugh writes doesn't do that (edit: mostly), perhaps because he's so direct about the loneliness and pain of creative work. "Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain."
There's also something about the contrast between his trivial business-card doodles and the life-and-death questions. The high and the low go together and understand each other. It's the mediocre middle that sucks.
Don't you think that "Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten." Crosses that line? It's really easy to prove that wrong. Statistically, that's a bad advice. In my personal opinion, that sounds like a dishonest mean to get your readers to like you.
I don't blame him tho. I don't think he's doing any wrong. There's a difference between "scientifically correct" and "politically correct". And I understand that, unfortunately, life sometimes makes you choose the political path instead of the scientifically correct one. If a kid with mental disorder asks you "will I ever be an astronaut?", it might be dishonest to pat him in the back and tell him, of course you can, just try hard enough. But I wouldn't blame those who would.
I am no authority, but FWIW my experience of creativity comes from a place I find hard to believe every human being doesn't have access to. As Bob Dylan sang: "In this you are not so unique". The difficulty is that we are governed almost completely by the desire to believe and do what other people say.
You can be humble and productive at the same time. That's one of the goals of the Lean Startup.
Skeptically analyse the viability before doing something. That's different from avoid doing at all. You just need to be skeptical about your own knowledge and abilities, and then you can make a better decision. That's a good advice. But "believe in yourself above all else", not so much.
When you see something other people don't see, measuring their opinions is likely to tell you you're wrong. But what if you're not wrong? Emerson has a great line somewhere about the pain of having an original thought and giving it up under pressure, only to find out later that it was right.
That advice is only out-shined by blogs that advise others to "stop telling everyone else what to do".
http://www.gapingvoidart.com/ignore-everybody-11x14-p-69_0.h...