
Creating Things That Matter [video] - rfreytag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SId3J8J7cPo&t=8s
======
thinkingkong
I couldnt get a lot out of this talk and havent read the book. But I do feel
the theme of what he’s saying becoming a popular narrative lately.

People are hungry to provide themselves and others with purpose and meaning.
It seems as though so many of us want to know what we’re doing will make a
difference, in the short and the long term. Not just working for the sake of
it, or competing blindly in what may be a zero sum game.

~~~
disqard
The speaker's narrative style in this video has many depth-first branches,
before he unwinds the stack and continues. This makes it a high-effort
endeavor (for me) to stay focused on his message.

After ~15 minutes, I gleaned these two points:

1\. Creation is an essential part of being human

2\. The way we create has fundamentally changed over the past half-century,
and the consumer of a work now plays a non-trivial role in shaping the work.

I wonder if the book has a similarly discursive style.

~~~
majke
For me the highlight was the ~15:14 mark, building up on the the diving buddy
example. First he mentions that creative process needs a buddy (in "pioneering
conditions"):

\- buddy must be passionately curious

\- buddy needs to be kind

Then he explains that all creators create in a cycle, and that long-term
creation must be fun, since there is no quick payday. The cycle:

\- ideating

\- experimenting

\- exhibiting

He explains that the exhibiting can (should?) be done to audiences that "get
it" and are able to consume the content even in experimental form.

This resonated for me. The most creative and long-term work I did was in this
very cycle. I was able to produce things that were immediately consumed and
the feedback loop was very quick. This allowed me to stay motivated and
sustain "the creativity" for > 2 years.

The obvious question is how to create this cycle artificially, and how to
sustain it from an employer point of view.

On the subject of motivation/meaning, it's worth noting "The nihilist's guide
to meaning" [https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-
meaning/](https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-meaning/)

~~~
majke
There is some relationship between motivation and enthusiasm. I think
enthusiasm is the single most important thing.

Naively, you could state that showing enthusiasm is an expression of internal
motivation. But enthusiasm can be faked, while I'm not sure you can fake
motivation.

The remaining question is: is it possible to have motivation to do creative
work without having an enthusiasm?

(and of course, how to build both things consciously. Is convincing yourself
to "doing meaningful work" exactly that?)

------
segmondy
In creating things that matter, one has to decide what matters, are you
creating what matters to you or to the public? If for the later, then you must
ask yourself if you are willing to deal with all that it entails such as
criticism, moving in a direction that you don't care about where you might not
even enjoy the work, and doing a lot of work that other's might value but
refuse to pay for.

I frankly believe that the act of creating is "creating things that matter",
if it never mattered you wouldn't put in the effort in the first place, the
question is does the impact matter? if you created something for only you or
you and your friends, what's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing! It use to be
that creators created things that mattered to them, but now it seems we are
driven to create for others and for profit.

If anything, I would argue against "creating things that matter" and simply
preach, "CREATE!"

------
andyidsinga
(I'm a bit critical in my comment below; Caveat being that I do appreciate
David Edwards' exploration of the subject. Also, his talk is only 28 minutes.
The additional material in the his book may well address what I've brought up
below).

at about 9:29 :

> "The wall between the creator and the public is going away, and that it's
> becoming increasingly difficult to receive commercial value or to learn and
> not to co-create..."

I think this doesn't give enough credence the 1000 true friends / believers
concept that Kevin Kelly and Seth Godin have discussed. The 1000 true friends
theory is especially potent when the the absolute audience size is most of the
people in the world, and only a tiny subset across that audience is
patronizing the creator/artist.

Later in the video he talks more about the maker movement ..but comes back to
"the lab" as a place that that can be captured and understood. I don't quite
understand that..

At about 11:00:

> "kids are the ultimate pioneers"

I don't understand this - kids are certainly sponges for learning - but I
don't think they're creative pioneers at all - calling kids creative pioneers
is much too broad (IMHO). It seems kids are much more reactionary to the
creativity that has been put in front of them; often in new mediums ...which
means the creative pioneers already exist. Sure there are exceptions to the
rule that are indeed kids.

Edit: re kids : in the video he shows a young child - and that is what I'm
reacting to. But if you define "kids" to be people in their 20s ..well, that's
different. That said, it would be interesting to have some statistics for
creative pioneers who are kids (per some definition) vs others.

------
a-nikolaev
The talk is interesting and the importance of audience is a good point.

However, there is selection bias in the statement that most creations are made
for audience. It is true that most famous creations were made for audience,
indeed, otherwise they would not become famous or even known to others. There
is more to art though.

Some people don't publicize their art, or don't get a lot of attention from
others. Yet these people are not necessarily lesser artists. The whole
audience can be one friend, or small internet community, or there may be no
intended audience at all, when art is made for the sake of the creation
process, not necessarily for exposition at all.

The same for the necessity of beauty, which he states is required for all art.
I think, not all art or artistic creations are beautiful. However, beautiful
art gets remembered and becomes part of the bigger culture easier.

------
diydsp
im midway thru this book atm. its got an encouraging and enlightening feel,
but suffers a bit from being situated in elite academia.

for example, this requirement of being "nice" was ubiquitous in gradschoolland
and synonomous with "unchallenging, flattering, " and especially, "beyond
critique."

hopefully this talk lets the book's concepts trickle down to Earth a bit.

------
alan_wade
I highly recommend everyone to read "Perennial Seller" by Ryan Holiday. Really
insightful and fun to read book on the same subject that does a much better
job of explaining it than this dude.

------
malkia
TLDR - The creativity nowadays goes in much faster cycles than before, and
less life. "Our creations used to live the life of trees, then turtles, and
lately flies..." (unknown rand() thought)

------
anomaloustho
A lot of words were said but very little was taken away. Can anyone sum up
what they thought was interesting or valuable about this talk?

~~~
degenerate
Basically: lots of people create things now, and the creations are more short
lived than in the past, when there were less creators and less creations. It
was one of the least rewarding videos I've watched recently.

