
Consume less, create more - tomjcleveland
https://tjcx.me/posts/consumption-distraction/
======
ciconia
These are not the only two options. There's a third activity most of us seem
to have forgotten - to simply be.

For me, the very act of everyday living has become very enjoyable and
fulfilling in recent years. Doing the dishes, cooking, gardening, sweeping the
floor, putting out the trash. Those are not "chores", that's what life's made
of. Some of it creative, some not, but the difference is you're simply present
in the moment and in the world.

~~~
thrav
Maintenance is either the one thing everyone forgets in these conversations,
or it’s the one thing everyone says no one will want to do.

If there were a return to pride in and appreciation of a job well done, there
would be no shortage of people willing to do the work, in my mind. The reason
most people are so unwilling to do these things is because they feel like it
is beneath them, and that doing them is a demonstration of their low status.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The reason most people are so unwilling to do these things is because they
> feel like it is beneath them, and that doing them is a demonstration of
> their low status._

Maybe some people. Not others.

N=1. I absolutely don't think maintenance is "low status". I just consider it
a waste of human time and resources that interferes with deriving utility and
enjoyment from things, but is strictly necessary. It's something to be
minimized, both in terms of doing no more than strictly necessary and finding
technological solutions to reduce maintenance burdens of products/systems. But
when it has to be done it has to be done, I have no problems with it.

It has nothing to do with status. Most maintenance work isn't done in front of
people, and _not doing it at all_ signals much lower status than doing it.
Rich people may do less of it themselves because they can afford to pay
someone else to do maintenance tasks.

~~~
coldtea
> _The reason most people are so unwilling to do these things is because they
> feel like it is beneath them, and that doing them is a demonstration of
> their low status. >_Maybe some people. Not others.*

Well, parent already said "most people", not all.

(But even if they haven't said "most", one should assume they allow for
exceptions in any general statement in a casual conversation. Unless of course
they used the universal quantifier and insisted on "absolutely everybody, no
exceptions whatsoever". But I digress).

> _It has nothing to do with status. Most maintenance work isn 't done in
> front of people_

It doesn't have to be to be associated with low status though. It's merely
enough that it's considered as stopping one from doing the things they think
would raise their status (what they "should be doing" that's not beneath
them).

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Well, parent already said "most people", not all._

What I meant is, while I can't read minds, "most people" disagrees with the
ad-hoc statistical sample of "people I know". What I perceive is people
differing in the amount of resistance they have towards doing unwanted things
that still need to be done, but I maybe once saw it being considered a
_status_ issue.

> _It 's merely enough that it's considered as stopping one from doing the
> things they think would raise their status (what they "should be doing"
> that's not beneath them)._

Do people really think this way? "This task is beneath me", "that other task
is not beneath me"?

I consider chores to be stopping me from doing things "I should be doing", but
it has nothing to do with status; it's just about having better things to do
with the time. I hate chores as much now as I hated them in the days I had
trouble making ends meet; the only difference is that nowadays I can afford
reducing some of them (e.g. I have a dishwasher now, and I can afford a little
bit extra to buy something that's easier to clean than the cheapest option).
Rich people are able to outsource more.

Maybe the picture is backwards? Outsourcing chores is a status signal in the
sense that your ability to reduce maintenance burden is correlated to your
wealth. That doesn't mean people hate maintenance because of status - what
makes this a good status signal in the first place is that chores are a waste
of life.

~~~
coldtea
> _I consider chores to be stopping me from doing things "I should be doing",
> but it has nothing to do with status; it's just about having better things
> to do with the time._

I think the difference in our opinion is that I see those two phrasings as
being more or less the same. "better things to do with the time" I
understanding as not very different from "those are beneath me, I'm here for a
higher calling".

As opposed to enjoying e.g. cooking and tending the house, and not considering
them a waste of time.

Kind of like people tend to look down on garbage men and cleaning persons,
even though their work is essential.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Still don't see that much of a similarity. "I don't like doing X" != "X is
beneath me", it just means I don't like doing X. So e.g. I don't like cooking
because I'm bad at it so it doesn't give me much enjoyment (chicken and egg, I
know). And I don't like cleaning the house because I consider it to be a waste
of life that's necessary only because we don't have self-cleaning technology.
I'm not even sure what the frame of mind looks like that allows one to enjoy
household chores.

> _Kind of like people tend to look down on garbage men and cleaning persons,
> even though their work is essential._

Ok, I've seen people thinking like this; I actively changed the mind of or
filtered out people like this from my social circle. It's a proxy for looking
down on poor / less successful people. Still, these are jobs associated with
less well-off precisely because the tasks are unpleasant, and everyone who can
avoid them, will.

(Then again, maybe it's self-reinforcing at this point, and the factor that
poor people do these jobs makes for an extra incentive to avoid doing the
same, even if one is poor too.)

------
apo
Worth noting that this is the blog's first post. I like the tone, the humor,
and the sheer nerve of writing something like this. It's inspirational without
being preachy.

It's also highly actionable. Here's how to apply it right now. Close your
browser and all other applications. Open a text editor (or a can of paint or
whatever). Reflect on something, anything. Then give yourself permission to
make the worst possible version of something you like consuming. Write one
sentence (or make one stroke), then another, and another. Eventually, rework
the mess you've created.

Having forced myself to do this on several occasions, I can say it becomes
addictive after a few days. And tiring. Which is why I also know it's easy to
relapse on an off day. Finding a way to keep motivated independent of external
praise is critical.

~~~
shartshooter
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can enforce discipline in myself to
accomplish specific tasks similar to OPs. I agree that that external praise
can be a game changer but man of the habits you want to develop are trivial
and not worth bringing up but can have a huge impact. For example, instead of
being creative, maybe you want to floss consistently or walk 10k steps. Both
of those habits are just as important as creating but writing a blog post
about it isn’t as sexy, nor is bringing it up in conversation.

I’ve been thinking about creating systems that help keep me going in the right
direction even though I know I’m going to have an off day because discipline
is so fleeting.

~~~
tertius
Tiny habits (free course for a week) + never skip 2 days.

------
t0mbstone
Creating stuff will definitely give you more of a sense of self-worth and
satisfaction than just consuming things will.

On the flip side, I create stuff all day at work, and sometimes when I come
home I just want to relax.

There is room for both. If all people did was consume, then the world would be
a boring place with nothing new. If all people did was create, then you would
have a massive glut of stuff that nobody actually appreciated.

I feel like video games are kind of in that space right now. There are just so
many video games coming out every day/week/month, and they all rehash the same
tropes. It's rare to find something really unique and "new". Sometimes I like
to go back to an old game that I haven't played in a long time and just get
caught up in it. Consumption doesn't always have to be of the latest and
greatest thing.

~~~
defterGoose
Yeah, I've have the same feeling about games lately. I took a break for a
couple years in college and then junior year came back and started playing a
lot of Halo 3 and Reach multiplayer. That was fun and got me back into video
games as a 'serious' hobby: one that I was invested in exploring on a broad
level. But ten years later I find myself getting bored with new games so
easily. Maybe it's just getting more involved with adult stuff, but I have
friends who are also avid gamers and I like having that as a shared
interest/jumping off point. Still, I find myself craving truly novel
narratives and mechanics and they're in thin supply. I'm reminded of
Sturgeon's Law and the burgeoning market of Indy/low effort game-making.

This was all a prelude to tell you that a couple months ago I picked up "Outer
Wilds" and it sparked my imagination in a real way. It really felt like I had
finally found a game that did space exploration 'right' and it ended up taking
a place in my top-5 games of all time. It was truly a beautiful, crafted
experience that kept me coming back for more. It was also not too long, not
too short. Probably about 30-40 hours provided a comprehensive playthrough and
I didn't feel like the game let you 'miss things', which I personally dislike.
I wouldn't want to read a choose-your-own-adventure novel for the same reason.

~~~
cableshaft
Sucks that you said that you don't like the idea of missing things, because
some of the best narrative games in recent years, in my opinion, had bits that
you could miss. Like Detroit: Become Human, which shows you how each chapter
could have branched and what path you ended up taking, or Neir Automata, where
you beat the game once and you've seen maybe 30% of the content in the game,
because subsequent playthroughs are from other perspectives. Or Life is
Strange, which has similarly complex branches like Detroit Become Human does,
and the main character can rewind time and try different approaches. Or
Persona 5, where it doesn't give you enough time to max out each NPC's social
link, so you will miss some side stories the first time through the game, and
there's bad or alternative endings you can trigger depending on what you do.

If you're into non-narrative games at all, then there's some games with novel
mechanics coming out. Two of my favorites recently are Into The Breach, which
is a tactics game where you know exactly how the enemies will attack, and your
goal is to use your mechs to move, stop, block, or kill the bug threatening
the attack so that it attacks somewhere else or doesn't finish the attack,
where it turns it into a thinky puzzle.

Or Baba is You, a puzzle game which is just full of 'holy crap I didn't
realize you could DO that!' moments, where you push words around to form
sentences which govern the rules and mechanisms for the level, which you have
to manipulate in order to solve the level.

And if you haven't tried The Witness yet, Jonathan Blow spent 7 years dreaming
up every possible way in which you could possibly change-up a 'draw a line
through a maze' puzzle, and the deeper you get into that game, the more crazy
things you'll discover that he came up with (I would have never come up with
half the crap he did, and it gets reaaaally creative). There's several 'Holy
crap I didn't know you could DO that,' moments in that game too. But it's not
a narrative game, not really. More of a hint of a narrative.

~~~
defterGoose
Yeah, the problem is that most games fail to have compelling enough mechanics
to warrant replays. If things are "missable" it kinda feels like a f*ck you
from the developer, or at the very least like they didn't try hard enough to
have a cohesive narrative (too many hangers-on narrative ideas). Depends on
the game of course. But for instance, with Nier (haven't played it, not my
favorite stylistically), if you really haven't encountered 70% of the content
with one playthrough, I wouldn't consider that a true playthrough.

The Witness blew me away too. At the time I played it (release), I felt the
same way about it as Outer Wilds. Baba is you was recommended by a friend
recently, and I'd definitely like to give that a shot at some point. I'm
pretty hawkish about style, and I tend to strongly dislike tactics type games,
as well as RTS. A lot of newer RPGs turn me off too, especially ones using the
ATB concept (FF7 is one of my all time favs as well, but I have almost no
interest in trying the new one; I reaaaally wanna vote with my dollars for new
IP).

~~~
IggleSniggle
80 Days felt surprisingly novel to me because of the way it’s narrative felt
so “complete” on first 3 hour play-through, knowing that I was seeing only a
small fraction of the game. I’m not sure I’d get the same joy out of replays,
but the joy was really in having a standard storybook experience with solid
writing combined with self-determination and time pressure.

It made the world seem so rich and full BECAUSE I knew I was only seeing a
very small fraction of the possible content. If I played it again and got the
same story, I suspect I’d be surprised and disappointed, which is why I can
never play it again!

Edit: it may have felt so novel to me because I spend most video game time in
tactical games, or puzzles, and this was somehow both of those things and
neither of those things.

~~~
cableshaft
I've replayed 80 days a few times. As long as you choose different paths, the
game will tell you a pretty different story (at least for those three times I
replayed it). I even died before making it all the way around the world once.

------
dredmorbius
Yes, producing is hard.

No, quantity is _not_ the same as quality. Some people write 5,000 books in a
lifetime. Wittgenstein wrote two. The second refuted most of the first.

Much modern consumer technology is aggressively anti-generative. I'm wrestling
with a crap tablet and OS and a browser that's crashed a half-dozen times
today, taking down the 50 or so items I'd had lined up to read (I've yet to
embrace the "consome less" element).

I spend a lot of time fighting to create and acquire the time and space and
materials and tools I require _to_ create, often battling with uncomprehending
others in this. "Why do you need books / computer / light / space / food /
housing / clothing." I only wish I were kidding.

Facile works can be created with relatively low barriers surmounted. More
substantive ... takes a bit more. I'm not remotely pretending to be another
Ludwig, but reading him and others like him, I've formed a pretty strong view
of the quality-quantity curve and how that works out. If even just a 1,600
word blog essay takes a month to compose, a more ambitious project might just
require a bit beyond that.

And yes, getting into the creative habit, and seeing what works and doesn't
(cold starts on blank pages have their place, but so doe boxes and stacks of
index cards and books), and not being afraid to start over or take time.

~~~
The_rationalist
Hahahaha if you were in my brain you would understand easily why you made me
laugh a lot. I'll still try to explain it to you. I mostly agree with most of
your paragraphs.

 _Wittgenstein wrote two._ If I understand correctly, you imply that
Wittgenstein books (including the _tractactus_ ) are of great quality (meaning
≈ of great intellectual value)

Actually very few persons understand the tractactus philosophicus. Let me
contextualize: Much of "modern" philosophy is totally bullshitesque, no
empirism, no intellectual rigor / epistemology, add to this complex subjects
studied by people with no knowledge about them and bullshit artists (which is
a real skill for selling your books). In parralel of the unification of
science happening in the 20th century, a few philosophers actually remembered
that philosophy is the love(Phil) of _truth_ (soph) (which indeed is
antithetic to BS and to multiple incompatible theories). Those philosophers
founded analytical philosophy that had intellectual rigor and even made
advance in epistemology, study of paradoxes, of logics, and tools like truth
tables (used for e.g hardware logic gates nowadays). They had big results in
the foundation of mathematics (especially set theory, e.g the Foundational
axiom from zFc) and so they got authority in philosophy in general, even
getting recognized by fake philosophers aka bullshit artists.

Wittgenstein was an analytical philosopher along with Russell. I've read most
of the tractactus, at first I espected to learn many things from a book from
such an intellectually rigorous man. And what a book! The tractactus "aims" to
answer all philosophical problems...

I was quickly disappointed at the beginning, descovering that tractactus pages
were full of nonsense, of words equivocations, of sophisms/fallacies, of BS
art. But by reading more and more I discovered that the tractactus was not an
absurd nonsense, it is an hilarious _satire_ of bullshit artists. It is not
even questionable, all the book is full of memes, of trolling. E.g invalid,
ridiculously filled truth tables (and he was an expert at truth tables) The
end of the book is totally clear once you understand that and end beautifully
saying that what you do not understand, you must not talk about.

What's even funnier is that most of the philosophical community did not and
even today do not understand this is an obvious satire, and think this is one
of the greatest books ever. (btw this really fascinate me this kind of people
that have this fascinating and horrifying cognitive ability: They read totally
nonsensical texts (that use figure of speech melted with sophisms), they do
not understand that they do not understand, and then call the author a genius,
an "intellectual"(post modernism would perfectly fit such a category))

 _Wittgenstein wrote two. The second refuted most of the first._ You are aware
that it is refuted by himself, then how can you call it a high quality book?
This make no sense ^^ Btw Wittgenstein had no added value in the philosophical
world he has been totally useless and if he never had existed, state of the
art philosophy would be unchanged.

~~~
gjm11
> the Foundational axiom from zFc

The capitalization there suggests that the F in ZFC stands for "Foundation".
It doesn't; it stands for (Abraham) Fraenkel, one of its creators.

I don't see any sign that, e.g., Russell understood the _Tractatus_ as a
satire. He was pretty good at spotting bullshit and if he took it seriously I
would consider that strong evidence against your interpretation.

------
dynamite-ready
I like to think it's less about patterns of consumption, and more about what
we consume.

One of my favourite quotes:

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten;
even so, they have made me.”

To me, that suggests a number of things. For one, consuming information is
undervalued by the author of the blog. It's fundamental to us.

Secondly, while you like broccoli and drink milk, I might well be allergic to
milk and hate broccoli (I don't, just musing)... So one should be slow to
judge. That said, I've never used Netflix. I could be missing out.

And finally, you wouldn't eat a 4 course meal on you commute, and you would
definitely have some trouble making one on a bus or train ride too.

~~~
toxicFork
Thank you for this quote.

I am going through a book (The Nicomachean Ethics) trying to really understand
every sentence in it, and its meaning. Going back and forth, taking notes.
More like studying it than reading it, I guess.

It's taking me a long time, almost a year.

I was wondering if I remember the previous chapters, and I sort of do so. But
I worry that by the time I have finished it, I will not be able to summarize
the chapters well.

I guess it's not necessary. There are many things I have picked up from it; it
has lead to many interesting discussions with my friends, and so on. That
should be enough.

~~~
temo4ka
Consider pre-reading it first. If a book is hard, if it’s over you head, try
going through the whole book w/o stopping on things you don’t understand
(don’t fixate). In this way you’ll grasp the major points, ideas and themes.
Only then read it carefully — you’ll understand better and get more out of the
book.

It’s similar to progressive JPEG rendering. Your first pass is pre-processing
resulting in fuzzy understanding of the whole that you then refine in the
subsequent pass(es). Progressive way is more natural and effective.

I highly recommend reading Adler’s “How to Read a Book” [1]. This exactly the
guide you want to read if you want to know how to learn well from books.

1\. [https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/0671212095)

~~~
toxicFork
Thank you for the suggestion, I will give it a try.

------
platz
It may be counter-intuitive, but I feel that without some level of
consumption, what you create will be highly derivative—drawing of things you
have internalized long ago, but have forgotten whereabouts they were acquired.

(you can see this in philosophical/moral discussions with people who have
never questioned the source of their values)

Some consumption is probably necessary for creativity. You need to bring some
things outside the world into yourself, or your ideas will feel made-up and
phony.

Also, many a artist will admit a lot of what some would call "copying" in the
art world is common - but it's more akin to reacting to something from a peer
and then putting a unique twisted outlook on it; and this almost creates a
'conversation' even if the author isn't intending that.

~~~
cannonedhamster
All art is a conversation between the artist and the viewer. I'm fairly
certain that's a phrase I've heard before. If your goal is to just spew your
ideas out a megaphone without any thought as to how it would be received then
quality doesn't matter as your need for expression is fulfilled in the act.
When you're trying to convey an idea that you think matters, that you feel is
important, then you spend a lot more time in getting it as close to right as
you can. This is because you're looking for a response, whether that's in
words, action, or reaction. I think your comment is spot on.

------
Barrin92
Very strongly disagree with the idea that consuming art is not in itself a
generative process. Reading (or many other forms of consumption), if done
attentively require practise. There is a world of difference between anxious,
distracted twitter scrolling and a good reader.

All a book gives you is letters on a page, the rest of the exercise is left to
the brain of the reader. Reading is a difficult and enormously complex
process, and by no means less of an active or creative activity than writing.
Becoming a skilled and mindful reader takes a lot of time. Learning how to
engage with the creations of others also means widening ones own personality.

I think this post falls into the trap of 'productiveness', which thinks of
creative activity only in terms of to what degree something can be exposed to
others, ironically for consumption.

~~~
skadamou
I am inclined to agree with the sentiment of your post as I also enjoy
reading. At the same time however, I'm not sure I could provide a summary of
the themes from The Grapes of Wrath as the author suggests even though I've
read that book in the last 10 years.

What exactly do you mean by being an attentive reader and how do you go about
training this skill? I read a lot and feel like I understand most of what I'm
reading but it doesn't seem like most of it sticks for more than a year or two
(if that).

~~~
Barrin92
I think I'd go with Nabokov's advice who said:

 _" Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good
reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader."_

Exploring many different books is fine, but I think what really pays of is
sticking with the books that are particularly meaningful to you and exploring
them over and over again, taking notes, finding people to discuss them with,
mulling them over, and so on.

I also do read quite a lot but on occassion I will always go back to the 5-7
books that are special to me, as a result I know a lot of them by heart even
if I haven't picked them up in years.

------
randomsearch
Massively disagree that reading a book and reddit are comparable. I guess if
you only read trash novels you can close the gap, but there is great value to
reading a quality book or a periodical like the Economist.

Something I’ve been thinking about recently is how very educated people who
would never read a tabloid paper or watch a stupid reality TV show will
happily retweet lowest common denominator memes or outrage twitter. Because
it’s so new, and because everything is intermingled, those people sleepwalk
into consuming trash culture. It’s like a well trained athlete has been
tricked into living off fast food.

------
TaylorAlexander
I love it! I am a super creative person and I spend a lot of time doing what
the article suggests. I quit facebook and all other social media two years
ago, though I still spend a lot of time scrolling through reddit. At any rate
I also write, maintain a few websites, design and build 3D printed robots, and
make youtube videos. The author really nails it that you can be creating every
day. Today I installed a GPU in my desktop and set up tensorflow to train an
image segmentation algorithm I got from github. A couple months ago I ordered
a 64x64 LED panel on aliexpress for $26 (search for "hub75") and the
appropriate adafruit raspberry pi shield, then took all that stuff on vacation
so when I was in a cabin in vermont I could configure the raspberry pi with
the appropriate libraries to drive the thing. That was super fun! Earlier this
year I took time off between jobs and built a massive four post bed out of
redwood. The corner posts are 6" square and 7 feet tall and its all sanded and
oiled and it looks phenomenal.

The author discovered something really valuable - even when you've got nothing
but your phone you can create. And personally I find creating things way more
rewarding. If you've ever thought about logging off of Netflix and social
media, I definitely recommend it!

And humbly, if you want to see what I've been working on, see here:

[http://tlalexander.com/missing/](http://tlalexander.com/missing/)

[https://reboot.love/](https://reboot.love/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToGT3KokPZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToGT3KokPZA)

~~~
Hasz
looked thru your site, seems pretty neat. I think accumulating and designing
tools is one of the hardest parts to creating physically, as opposed to
cranking out thoughts.

Flutter seems like a cool platform!

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Thank you! Flutter is cool in theory, but in practice many backers never got
their hardware. I still use Flutter almost every day for remote control of my
robots, but it never got to be what I had hoped it would become.

------
tjr
I do feel that I get more out of spending 30 minutes reading a book than I do
out of 30 minutes browsing Twitter. Despite how addictive it is (and thus how
much some part of me apparently enjoys it), I think I prefer pretty much any
activity on my list of possible activities over puttering around with my
phone: taking photographs, cleaning dishes, composing music, putting away
laundry, writing software, pulling weeds, sleeping...

Seriously, I get more value out of effectively anything else over browsing
trivial stuff on my phone.

Why then is it so easy to keep doing it?

~~~
messo
Fear of missing out, I think.

And the fact that social media generally speaking is engineered to grab our
attention and keep it for as long as possible – because personalized ads. When
I identified my own FOMO a few years back I deleted most of my social media
apps on my phone (except Fediverse-apps which have no algorithms, only good
old chronological feeds).

I'm reading more books now :)

~~~
strikelaserclaw
I don't think it's FOMO as much as those products are designed to release
temporary happy chemicals with the least amount of effort. Let's be honest, it
is much easier to get drunk, eat junk food all the time, browse reddit than it
is to eat ur veggies, moderate alcohol, exercise, study etc... For most
people, their mind always gravitates towards immediate hedonistic pleasures,
this is just the way most people are built (myself included).

~~~
messo
I guess the algorithms and the UX design is just tailored to tap into the very
human fear of missing out. And the fact that we are creatures of habit.

------
riantogo
Why? As in why is creating at a higher level than consuming? Couldn’t we just
“create” at our day jobs and consume at leisure time? Isn’t consuming
transferring some of the value we captured elsewhere to some creators?

I give everyone here the permission to consume guilt free (if that make it
better).

~~~
phkahler
One is actually more satisfying than the other. If you have personal
experience to the contrary I'd like to hear it.

~~~
riantogo
That is just shit we keep telling ourselves. You might even point to me
studies, but those are just reflection of what we have conditioned ourselves
to believe. Frankly this is how we end up with 70 hr work week or pressured
into trying to build that app that no one needs or wants. Because reading a
book or running around with your kid being silly is not “productive”.

~~~
fredsir
Ideally you wouldn't have to be creating something you don't care about at
your day job at 40-60/h/w, but instead could spend all your creative time on
something you really care about, and doing it to benefit you and your peers
instead of primarily just shareholders, and the rest of your time reading a
good book, and being silly with your kid.

However in the modern world, those things are mostly pushed aside, and instead
most people in the modern world spend most of their waking hours as hamsters
in a wheel.

Then there's the middleground where you try to do both. That's where most
people burn out.

------
Hasz
A couple of thoughts, in the spirit of this essay:

There's different levels of consumption. If it's a decent book, someone,
usually a few someones, have revised and rewritten parts of a thought, in an
attempt to refine the thought, boil it down, expand on it, etc. Your average
Kanye tweet probably is, at best, a shot from the hip, blindfolded.

Creation doesn't have to be a linear process. I spend a lot of commute time
thinking about my projects. Sometimes this ends up in furious sketches and
overly verbose notes, but more often than not, it consists of me awkwardly
staring at the floor and missing my stop. I put in earbuds w/o noise to drown
out the din and discourage the scourge of public transportation, conversation
with strangers.

Creative output does not need to be public. I'm sure there's the next great
american novel locked up in a Microsoft word doc somewhere, and that's sad,
but OK. Realistically, I only get to see what others put out, so if you want
to be noticed, keep flinging shit at the wall like it's never going out of
style. Even if it's a single blogpost on a personal site, someone will see it,
and that makes it all totally worth it.

------
yakubin
Offtopic, but assuming the poster is the author of the article:

1\. I love the font you chose for your blog and the fancy styling of the first
letter of each section. For the first 1 minute I was just staring at the L at
the beginning appreciating it. I'm a huge fan of serif fonts in general and
regret that sans-serif is used so much more widely. Generally a very clean,
good-looking theme.

2\. You might want to link to your rss feed in a <link> tag in the html head.
I discovered it by knowing where Hugo usually puts it, but others may not have
as much luck.

~~~
tomjcleveland
1\. Thanks! The font is actually just Times New Roman! I like serif fonts but
wanted to use a common system font.

2\. Great tip! Just added it.

~~~
contingencies
I made some art from an idea I had this morning that would have remained
unimplemented if I hadn't read your writing. Send me your address (email in
profile) and I'll snail-mail it to you.

------
DoreenMichele
This is a delight for so many reasons.

Most of my online time is via a cheap smartphone. There are limits to what I
can do on it, but a lot of my blog writing happens on that phone. A lot of
what passes for a social life for me happens on that phone via the twitter app
or other online platforms. A lot of research happens on that phone.

The Palm Pilot was so named because it was the computer power of an airplane
in the palm of your hand. I bet most smartphones today outclass it by a wide
margin, yet we think they are good for shitposting on Facebook, not for Real
Work.

But they are good for real work. There's an insane amount of actually
productive stuff you can do on a smartphone today from almost anywhere.

I also enjoyed the style of the article -- the self-deprecating humor, the
somewhat biting wit. It's a thing I used to do a lot more of and I guess I
long to move back more in that direction so as to give more life to my
writing.

------
valgor
This really hits home with some thoughts I've had lately. But I'm caught in a
trap. Do I go after my dreams (numerical computing), do something useful
(continue working with the non-profit I help out with), or continue being a
sellout by working and learning things relevant to my employer? Splitting my
time does not seem efficient, but consuming less and creating more would mean
I'm at least working towards several goals slowly than not at all.

------
caconym_
I don't think most people are capable of being creative all the time, but the
key is to find some creative pursuit you enjoy and make sure you make time to
pursue it. If that means doing it on a schedule, so be it. (that's what it
means for me)

I write fiction "for fun", and sometimes it feels like work, but if I gave it
up I'd drink every night and binge every weekend because my job is totally
devoid of meaning. Hanging out with my partner is the only other thing I
really care about, and frankly we like drinking together a little bit too
much.

By the way, any late career change suggestions for a software engineer who's
got some money saved up and is sick of tech? Because, fuck.

~~~
jodrellblank
_because my job is totally devoid of meaning_

There's a self deception. Meaning isn't out there in the world, meaning is in
people's heads. There's no meaning but that which we make for ourselves. It
isn't your job which is devoid of meaning, but your interpretation of your job
compared to your interpretation of other jobs.

That is to say, your suffering doesn't come from the outside, it comes from
the inside.

~~~
caconym_
What do you think I meant, when I said that? Do you think I believe in a font
of cosmic meaning that flows out through some human pursuits but not others,
and my job is in the latter set?

I'll tell you: that's not it.

~~~
jodrellblank
I think you said exactly that. That some jobs inherently have meaning, that
yours doesn't. Stating that you would become a drunk to cope with the lack of
meaning in your job says that you don't believe the meaning is in your head
and changeable, but that it's in the job and unchangeable.

You say " _any late career change suggestions for a software engineer who 's
got some money saved up and is sick of tech?_" as if the sickness is in the
job, because of the job, and not in you and your reaction to it.

~~~
caconym_
I'm sorry, but I don't believe every possible human activity is equally
amenable to "finding meaning" in. You're welcome to believe that, but I don't,
and your dogged attachment to a particular interpretation of my words that
justifies the dispensation of this nugget of sophomoric wisdom isn't
interesting. You aren't saying anything that a reasonably intelligent person
in my position hasn't already considered a thousand times from a thousand
different angles.

Sorry.

------
nonbirithm
I've been thinking about this too much recently. Only a month ago did I
realize that all the reading on HN I've done over the years hasn't given me
much to think about or remember beyond the span of a day. None of it has made
me any smarter, because I wasn't approaching it with that goal. All I really
desired when I instinctively typed the "n" in the omnibar and pressed Enter
was wanting to be amused and nothing more.

Yet I wouldn't be honest if I said I didn't enjoy the time I spent, at least
in the moment. It's just that "enjoyment" shuts down personal growth for me.
I've since realized I was using the "time enjoyed is not wasted" adage as an
excuse to not think critically and make honest attempts at internalizing new
knowledge. As someone else mentioned the better word to use instead of
"enjoyed" would be "fulfilled" because it takes into account the long term.

I've found that I've become too good at subverting ways of not stressing out
about figuring out one's lifestyle and using them to get complacent, when if I
chose to think just the slightest bit more carefully I would realize I wasn't
actually working towards what I wanted. For that matter I didn't even _know_
what I wanted for a long time, because I never bothered to ask.

If you search hard enough there will always be someone who will tell you
you're doing just fine.

In addition to a lack of creativity I can't remember much of what I've
consumed. I don't use Facebook or Twitter so my usual assumption was that by
consuming things that take continuous effort and resources to make, like
television shows, I was spending my time more wisely. That wasn't really true
if I made no effort to remember or understand what I had seen. To me it might
as well be that I had never seen any of it in the first place and the time was
lost.

I've decided that some things are worth remembering and the only way I can
remember anything for sure is by writing it down, so any time I consume I try
to reflect on it and write a few paragraphs about the general plot, themes or
personal takeaways. Even when I forget it later I can look back on my notes
and know I made an effort to understand something. I know now that if I don't
bother to do this I won't have anything interesting to talk about if it comes
up in conversation except "I liked it," which has become one of the most
painful responses for me to give.

And this is just about consumption, not creative output. Suddenly I want to
try to understand more things I consume but I also want to make room for
trying to explore my own ideas. It's overwhelming and with a traditional day
job it becomes soul-crushingly stressful.

~~~
truth_be_told
You have nailed it!

A lot of us are suffering from the above same mindset but because we don't
even put forth the time to step back and reflect, we don't realize that we are
simply running in place without advancing towards our goal (if we are even
aware of our goal).

Bertrand Russell in his book "The Conquest of Happiness" says;

 _My purpose is to suggest a cure for the ordinary day-to-day unhappiness from
which most people in civilized countries suffer, and which is all the more
unbearable because, having no obvious external cause, it appears inescapable._

Our current Society and Technology have made matters exponentially worse.
"Consumption/Distraction" have become the norm and we have to fight the
Environment mighty hard to focus and sustain "Creativity/Concentration".
Technology might mask our mental degeneration for a while but sooner or later
Society will have to pay the price.

------
sjustns
Having spent the last few months away from technology to take care of my head,
I find myself pacing around the living room waiting for a spark to return.
This does not bother me in the least bit. I am someone who craves alone time.
That means no music, no podcasts, no computer, no noise, no people. I am quite
happy with a book and a writing pad. I want to be left alone to have a certain
kind of inward experience.

As a side note, I have always felt that the point of reading is not to
remember everything you have read, it is more to shape the way you think. And
we might remember more of what we read if we would stop reading about other
people's reading and productivity habits, and just keep to ourselves. But I
digress.

Sometimes people ask what it is I am working on, or what it is I do by myself
all of the time. The answer, of course, is not a whole lot. Ours is a society
that celebrates participation and creativity, yet I feel no pressure to create
for the sake of creating, or to share for the sake of sharing. And I do not
feel guilty or lazy for not "producing" anything of note. If there is a hell,
it is full of groups of people doing group activities, and I am required to
participate and create and talk about whatever it is we are doing for
eternity. What a nightmare.

To be sure, I have written plenty. But what I am driving at is that a lot of
the writing or "creative work" I do is for my eyes only. Sometimes I think
about sharing an essay, but I have to pause to ask myself if I want to share
because I have something to say, or if I want to share because I am seeking
validation. Most of the time, the desire to create comes not from some quiet
space inside of me, but from the side of me that wants to be seen and heard. I
find that the quality of my writing, or any creative work, is far better when
it comes from the right mental state, rather than from an abstract sense of
urgency that I should be creating something, anything.

On another note, having thought about this for awhile now, the deep need for
solitude is part of who I am, but also a compensatory reaction to being
connected all of the time. Whether we realize it or not, we spend the better
half of our days in a sympathetic state. This has consequences, I think, that
are different for everyone. Eventually, you have to deal with the residue of
living and working at a pace that is often not of your own making. Sometimes
you have to get your bearings before the creative spark comes back. That can
take longer than expected.

In closing, it is worth paying attention to the kind of creativity that comes
from helping a friend or lover make something better. Even though the project
is not of your own making, being able to add a touch of your creative insight
is intellectually rewarding in a unique way.

~~~
bobbiechen
_> I have always felt that the point of reading is not to remember everything
you have read, it is more to shape the way you think._

I can't agree with this more. As a kid I used to read a huge amount - my
sister and I would swoop into the local library, check out twentyish books,
and read them all by the return period of three weeks. Averaging a book a day,
and I remember virtually nothing of it. I've recently gotten back into reading
books, and after a couple weeks I still won't remember much detail about any
particular book I read. But I'm still very aware of the experiences that they
shared with me and the way reading them made me feel.

A conversation with a friend recently spurred me to post an old thing that I
wrote online. And I felt the same way, wondering if I was seeking some
validation this way. But the experience I wrote about was incredibly
influential on my life, and I think on the off chance that anyone reads it,
it's valuable just to share that perspective. It's true that we're connected
all the time, though I think a lot of the time people are too self-conscious
to share things that are really personal, that might change the way others
think. And so I would like to contribute towards that.

------
JVIDEL
Many who used to have a PC now have just a smartphone but the problem is that
phones are modeled to be consumption devices, not for production. Even
pro/highend mobile devices lack the ability to compete head-to-head with an
actual laptop/macbook because the underlying OS is limited in scope by design.

TL;DR: you were never meant to do work on a phone, just watch stuff

------
pgcj_poster
> Smartphones, I’ve decided, are not evil. This entire essay was composed on
> an iPhone.

Maybe it wouldn't have taken a whole month if you had written it on a laptop.

~~~
PeterStuer
Or used a pencil and notebook

------
jannyfer
Kudos to the author on getting a blog post out! It’s something I haven’t done
in years.

I also used to believe I need to “consume less, create more”...

Since then, it’s become more like “if you want to, then consume meaningfully,
take time to digest it, sleep on it, get your mind off it for a while, go
consume more, take a break, create something, be bad at it, and create again,
and maybe eventually you’ll be good at it”.

Some books that shaped my thought process were:

Where Good Ideas Come From - Steven Johnson Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker

Also, blog posts about meditation, interviews with prolific movie
writer/directors, and that Ira Glass video.

------
PeterStuer
The problem isn't so much consumption vs creation in itself. It is the
overabundance and the complete lack of quality of both the created and the
consumed.

Put a high bar on both what you consume _and_ what you create.

~~~
gbjw
Strongly disagree with this sentiment. Which 'dimension' are you exactly
putting a 'high bar' on? How does one measure 'quality'? How do you know the
'quality' of what you consume until you consume it (reviews? how do you trust
the reviewer? also a 'high bar'?)?

I strongly believe that you need to consume and produce a wide variety of
content before you can even form a consistent notion of what you consider
'quality'.

------
Ayesh
I've been blogging low-key for 7 years now, and there are many pieces I feel
embarrassed about today, and sometimes that are even downright wrong.

But a habit of writing reduces the friction and helps in the thought process.
Some of the tech talks I have given, open source packages, and even one side
income source bringing about $2,000/mo are all branched out blog post ideas.
For me, what is worth most is to identify an idea worth writing about, and I
couldn't agree more with the author.

Their site is also super fast and minimal, I love it.

------
vivekv
I had a similar thought process a few days ago and wrote a post on the same. I
was looking to see where the balance lied, ie between producing and consuming
as there needs to be consumers for every product.

A bit of self promotion - my article is here
[https://medium.com/@criticalmind/creation-vs-
consumption-8e7...](https://medium.com/@criticalmind/creation-vs-
consumption-8e72023f5ef4?source=friends_link&sk=35b31fcaf673e15c3d67f4aa0fc5c533)

------
person_of_color
If you have high standards, it's difficult to create something.

~~~
Existenceblinks
This comment is at the bottom while I find this is actually a valid point.
I've often experienced this.

~~~
Existenceblinks
I can't believe someone just downvoted me, WOW! This is why I barely login to
comment on HN.

------
moab
To the author's point, yes I remember the main themes/movements in the
Steinbeck books I have read. I remember them for the Dostoevsky and Tolstoy I
have read. I remember them for most good books I have read, even if the
reading happened in high school, or 10+ years ago. Good books are almost like
a lived-experience. Yes, they are not as "creative" as sketching, or writing
an essay, but reading can also require creativity on the part of the reader.

~~~
jvagner
That part of the essay could be turned back on the essay itself.

------
rvn1045
Creating things and publicaly sharing what I create is the single greatest way
to reduce my anxiety. There is literally a step function decrease in anxiety
every time I do it.

~~~
tedmiston
I think it makes sense if you consider anxiety (simplistically) as "unpleasant
disproportionate worry about the future", and then creating something as
reducing uncertainty about the future.

------
benornk
> How much can you really remember from all of those New York Times op-eds
> you’ve read? Could you summarize the major themes of Grapes of Wrath?

There’s consuming for the sake of entertainment and consuming for the sake of
learning. Before you can create anything worth creating, you first need to
learn. You need to master your domain, understand its rules (which ones to
obey, which ones to ignore), and develop pattern recognition that will make
your creation authentic and meaningful.

You don’t consume Grapes of Wrath in order to recite its themes. You consume
it (and many other good works) to master storytelling and to gain the language
and techniques that will enable you to communicate the human condition
cogently.

Without deep exposure to great works your creation potential is limited, no
matter how much you create. Historically, people spent years in
apprenticeships and other forms of learning before they could venture out on
their own. If you consume the right stuff, then you’ll shorten the amount of
time you need to wait before you are able to produce something worth
producing.

------
jdsampayo
I Loved your article, I translated it to spanish for some friends that can not
read english at all. I don't know if translating something counts as
"creating", sometimes you need to change stuff in order to make sense in the
new language but most of the time you don't need to think on new ideas, just
different ways to express something.

Nevertheless, I do it because it helps me to relax, forget about the day-day
problems, practice english and as result to make it accesible for my friends /
family. It also helps me (or obligates) to understand the article deeper which
makes those more memorable.

That (on my mind) helps me to consume / create at certain point in a more
balanced way, as I need to spend more time on an article which makes it more
valuable for me to pick responsibly the right one and not just live on the
scroll-scroll-scroll-like-scroll cicle of most of social media.

------
Kaius
>>"Corín Tellado was a Spanish author who wrote over 5,000 books in her
81-year lifespan. That’s over sixty books a year, assuming she came out of the
womb fully literate. She claimed she could write a book in two days, and I’m
inclined to believe her."

Crazy. I was going to mention that her time would have been better spent
writing 1 good book rather than 5000 that (I assume because I have never heard
of her name before) were mediocre. Quality over Quantity.

Then I thought, perhaps writing brought her joy regardless of how well
received the final book is, so she spent her time well by making herself happy
doing what she loved. Be happy in your work.

Then I though, jesus 60 books a year, that sounds like she was manically
driven to write almost non-stop for her entire life, which is awful. Work will
set you free.

------
travislane
Nice first post for a new blog. I like the blog theme as well.

How can I create my own blog with such a clean and minimal theme?

~~~
acangiano
Although I recommend WordPress to most people in my Technical Blogging book, I
also discuss Hugo which is what OP used here. Technically you could get any
blogging engine to produce a blog that looks like that, but if you're after
the minimalistic look, Hugo is really not a bad way to go.

~~~
travislane
Thanks for the reply. I have tried Hugo earlier but found it confusing due to
so many locations for template files (_default/? baseof.html? single.html?
list.html? hard to remember all this stuff). What would be a good alternative
tool where I can just place a few template files in a single location and it
would be sufficient?

I have also looked at Jekyll but it is Ruby-based. I know Python. If the tool
is Python-based then it would help me because it would allow me to customize
its functionality or make it do some niche things that the tool does not
support by writing some Python code. I have looked at Pelican too but
customizing it seemed daunting to a beginner like me.

So I guess I am looking for a something simple, written in Python and easily
customizable. Any suggestions?

~~~
acangiano
You might want to look into Hyde:
[http://hyde.github.io](http://hyde.github.io). It's essentially a Jekyll for
Python (though it evolved to something more than just a clone).

~~~
travislane
Awesome. Thank you for the suggestion. I will take a look at it.

------
Jakob
An interesting exercise. OP is still creating something for consumption,
though. This is an old argument:

SOCRATES: You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting.
The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone
asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of
written words. You’d think they were speaking as if they had some
understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you
want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever.
When it has once been written down, every discourse roams about everywhere,
reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have
no business with it, and it doesn’t know to whom it should speak and to whom
it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked unfairly, it always needs
its father’s support; alone, it can neither defend itself nor come to its own
support. -- Plato. c.399-347 BCE. “Phaedrus.” Pp. 551-552 in Complete Works

tldr: Debate, discourse.

~~~
thrav
Interesting to see reference to Phaedrus when so much of what’s being
discussed in this thread takes me right back to thinking about Robert Pirsig.

------
cryptozeus
I was thinking about this exact same thing. I consume so much like read,
watching etc but don’t spend same amount on creating. Even in office I create
but spend more time in meetings and other stuff than actually coddling. I find
that creating anything random gives me more satisfaction so I have taken up on
more creative activities like cooking, coding at home, design etc. I am
driving this from the point of view of creation vs consumption and not so much
as hobbies.

------
lazyjones
Isn't that essentially what the Instagram etc. generation is deliberately
doing? It goes to such extremes that their whole lives are planned around
creating content for other people to consume. It's not a life I'd like to
live. My thoughts and activities aren't worth less because I don't finish,
polish and publish them. The best feelings cannot even be expressed using the
simple audiovisual channels we have...

~~~
buboard
Digital content makers produce, they don't create. Mobile media are inherently
limiting and limited media. There used to be a digital art which operates at
the borders of what is technically possible and is thus inherently creative.
It has increasingly become crowded out by the digital equivalents of ikea
posters

------
edem
I like your style. If you haven't written before you should keep doing it as I
can see that this is your first post. I agree with the overall sentiment as
well. Although I'm driving to work I spend a lot of time with creative
activities and they greatly enhance my life.

------
blisterpeanuts
There’s also raising children. I’m surprised no one’s mentioned this notion
yet. In my experience, there’s nothing more creative and productive and
totally satisfying than bringing a child into the world and nurturing them to
adulthood :)

------
8ytecoder
This has been my thought for a while now. I have reasonably pared down on news
and social media. However, I have tried to create regularly at least 4 or 5
times now but it hasn’t stuck. Well written essay and good motivation.

------
unnouinceput
Consume less, create more (or produce more)...and if everyone would adhere to
this we'd have another 1929 crisis. Remember those pictures of milk thrown out
in the field in order to keep its price up? Yeah, that is what happened back
then. Too much production and not enough consumption. Neither "consume lee,
create more" nor "consume more, create less" are good. One leads to economic
crisis, the other leads to famine. The sweet spot is 50/50, create exactly as
much as is consumed. Currently we have achieved this, but with the caveat of
West being the consumer and East the producer, hence the current trade war.

~~~
jodrellblank
_The sweet spot is 50 /50, create exactly as much as is consumed._

How do you apply that to something which is not used up as it is consumed,
like a book, film, blog post, song, etc.?

~~~
unnouinceput
books, movies, music and blog posts are information. Information is consumed
when assimilated. That's why you have every decade more profit from movies,
people are hungry for more information/entertainment. That's why you have
relative bad songs that break into billions views vs old songs that are very
good and barely have millions view - people are hungry for more
information/entertainment. That's why relative bad books like Twilight get
screen time and make billions vs Alexandre Dumas who is public IP and yet no
new movies based on his books are made - people are hungry for more
information/entertainment. And blog posts, ohh, I read several (The old new
thing, Schneier, etc) and you know what I always say about those? They post
too few - I am hungry for more.

~~~
jodrellblank
_Information is consumed when assimilated._

It isn't; everyone could watch the same film on the internet, it's not limited
in supply, it's not dependent on printing or shipping or factory production
line. Once there's enough film for everyone to watch for a lifetime - say 1M
hours to cover 24/7 watching for 100 years, what need is there for more film?

What you describe is that people are hungry for novelty. Not more, or better,
just newer. Yet there's enough books and films and songs already in existence
that we could spend a lifetime exploring and not run out.

How do you balance the claimed 50/50 production/consumption when there's
already enough media for everyone's consumption for a lifetime, in libraries,
today?

~~~
unnouinceput
There is enough porn to watch on PornHub for 70 years only at letter "A". Tell
me why porn still makes money then?

You missed my point entirely.

~~~
jodrellblank
Yes I don’t understand your point entirely. And I asked you to explain
further.

 _There is enough porn to watch on PornHub for 70 years only_

So you agree with me that media is not consumed, used up, when watched?

So where does the 50/50 production/consumption ratio you stated come from when
consumption uses 0?

------
buboard
> Modern technology

Modern technology isn't just phones. Get a PC, a desk and a proper chair.
Instantly you ve become more creative because there is more to do than swiping
up.

------
Kecelij
"This psychopath was sketching" Hahaha

------
Nec28
I like the Homepage of his website.

------
in_hindsight
Serious question - would you consider exercise consumption or creation?

~~~
tedmiston
Creation of health.

Unless you're actively consuming something like watching tv or reading a book
while you do it.

When it comes to more passive consumption like listening to music while you
exercise for background noise, I would still argue it's at least neutral. But
if you're listening to an audiobook or podcast (something new to you), then it
feels consumption again.

------
nuclx
Bookmarked the blog post so I can consume it tomorrow.

------
maximedb
Thank you for this. It is so simple, yet so true.

------
hyperpallium
Be a producer, not "a consumer".

------
0x8BADF00D
Some people are perfectly happy consuming and producing nothing. And the
inverse. Not everyone can be a producer; it is hard work. Anyone can be a
consumer.

