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Comment by delichon | Hacker News Reader

Desires to consume (create) are thin (thick).

  Thin: A desire to enjoy a book, video game, movie, musical performance, new technology, love, ...
  Thick: A desire to make any of the above.

The cure for Dementors isn't chocolate, it's becoming a tiny god of creation. Meaning is in making.

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True to an extent. But why would you want to create (e.g.) a movie if you don't think watching movies is worthwhile in and of itself? You're putting effort into creating something that you don't think is truly valuable. To a person with this mindset, the desire to create is cynical—they're only making movies in pursuit of extrinsic rewards such as money, fame, or success. If watching movies is thin to them, then making movies is also thin.

Conversely, an authentic filmmaker is someone who values movies in and of themselves; therefore, the authentic desire to create a movie must be downstream of a passion for watching movies. I don't think you'll find many artistically inclined filmmakers who would denigrate the act of watching movies as "thin." It's the thickness they feel in the experience of watching movies which inspired them to devote themselves to making movies in the first place.

I think, perhaps because the creation is the goal in itself, not the consumption by others. Because it is the change/improvement that the author mentions that we seek.

I think that leans toward a mistaken veneration of productivity. You don't have to make something to enrich your life. It's also valuable to connect with the things other people make, or with the world around you.

The article's definition: "A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it."

This definition is compatible with watching some films and not others. I think Alan Watts said something like that his job was that you no longer needed him. This implies that consuming his work would be thick until it wouldn't.

It's more like Thin is when the consumption is one directional. Like when you browse social media it is one directional. Social media goes towards you and you just experience it, everything is dumbed down into bites that require 0 effort or cognition to consume.

When you read a challenging book it is bi-directional. You will get out of it what you put in and it will be indecipherable if you just let it wash over you mindlessly. So I disagree about creation, I think the effort is what is important.

I'd argue that there's probably a disproportionate ratio of thin:thick, and that the majority of creators have to consume significantly more than they create to find their perspective, voice, purpose and inspiration for their creations. And those that created that which was consumed, consumed that which was created to feed their fire as well.

It's the whole thing about writers and comedians can't craft anything without having first lived, observed, contemplated and been confounded by orders of magnitude more than their output represents.

I think there's thin consumption and thick. Reality TV and YouTube/Tik-tok shorts being thin. Slow cinema or a documentary being thick. One is primarily entertainment that is easy to digest and acts more as a way to fill the time and quiet thoughts. The other requires deep engagement and confrontation with new ideas and a build up of contemplation through deep prolonged focus.

The first mode of consumption is understandably popular given the amount of noise in the world that distracts us. So many people are trapped in dopamine holes. It's mental withdrawal to try to attempt a sudden switch to thick consumption. They are so opposite of each other.

I can attest that it helps, if I couldn't be creative on a daily basis I'd be completely depressed instead of just moody and melancholic.

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