How To Be Creative | Hacker News Reader

How To Be Creative

gapingvoid.com

85 pointsrms19 comments

38 bold exhortations to live life creatively. Here's my favorite:

"Sing in your own voice.

Piccasso was a terrible colorist. Turner couldn't paint human beings worth a damn. Saul Steinberg's formal drafting skills were appalling. TS Eliot had a full-time day job. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan can't sing or play guitar.

But that didn't stop them, right?

So I guess the next question is, "Why not?"

I have no idea. Why should it?"

One HN-relevant Picasso quote. . .

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

and one that always cheers me up since I make more logic errors than anyone I know. . .

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

--Pablo Picasso

Picasso also outlived his talent.

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Masters-Young-Geniuses-Creativity/...

"A lot of people in business say they have twenty years experience, when in fact all they really have is one year's experience, repeated twenty times."

This has always been my favorite quote from this essay, probably because to goes double for the software industry. Having 10 years experience programming poorly makes you a worse hire than someone with no experience at all.

This may be a repeat appearance on the front page, but I welcome it any time!

Agreed.. this is always worth re-reading every few months. It's a fantastic read.

Outstanding post. I believe I bookmarked this a while back to read later, but never got around to it. This morning I woke up with client work to do, but of course I went to HN first instead. Noticed this, and spent 2 hours reading and thinking about the points. Very worthwhile.

"Beware of turning hobbies into jobs"

Don't most hackers turn their hobbies into jobs? How does that work for you?

i've had some success but mostly irritation over this... for the most part computers in general are both my hobby and my career, and that mostly works out, although can be exhausting, so i find other things.

specifically aspects of computerdom, administration like things used be a hobby for me, but not anymore now that i'm an admin, so my hobby is programming.

then i got moonlighting work on special programming projects. lots of fun, but now i just feel like making art and music more... and hopefully i can avoid making those a job just because i want to keep it fun.

i don't know... i might go back into design fulltime and become just a hobby hacker again, but i guess i need that in depth analysis of systems troubleshooting to feel relevant. it used to be a cool rewarding hobby, but now it is a cool and rewarding job, so i guess i can't complain, and it still works for me

Iterate over and over until you find something interesting.

Yea thats what I do but I have an efficiency function which judges my iterations so I know if an iteration is actually good or not.

stop reading huge lists and go fucking make something

There's also a nice pdf version here: http://www.changethis.com/6.HowToBeCreative

It is nicer but it doesn't have all the 38 points.

I like the layout though.

Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

I stopped reading there.

why?

Because it's overgeneralized, useless, feel-good nothingness.

They missed #1: 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration.

It's 1:99, not 10:90.

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