“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” - Ira Glass
“Everyone has a mass of bad work in him which he will have to work off and get rid of before he can do better– and indeed, the more lasting a man's ultimate good work is, the more sure he is to pass through a time, and perhaps a very long one, in which there seems very little hope for him at all. We must all sow our spiritual wild oats.”
Samuel Butler, English (1835-1902)
I'm seeing so many students succumb to plagiarism and use of genAI in assignments because they do not know that they aren't supposed to be any good, yet, and that professors don't expect them to be any good, yet. I try to tell my grad students that if they could write and do research/math/coding at the professional level they wouldn't be in grad school, they'd be out enjoying a prolific career (of course this isn't universally true, but it is for most students).
Professor Simonton, quoted here, seems to be confused about what is meant by Shakespeare’s “problem plays”.
This is how all good comedians work. It really works! If you write 10 bad jokes a day, in a year you are almost certain to have three good minutes.
Thanks, I needed this. A friendly reminder to stop getting into my own head and just do the thing :)
Yes, me too! Good words at the right time, here we go.
There is a new movement jokingly named "retardmaxxing", action over analysis, failing fast, quantity over quality, simplifying, etc.
I give it three months before it's ironically adopted by a broader audience or else sincerely adopted by people who see some value in the ethos. As if often the case, the lines will be blurred.
Sometimes I think people just want to be contrary and on some "new shit".
Yet another restatement of the Quality vs. Quantity principle: