Thanks for this. Probably THE answer, as you hint at, is the perception of creativity as something children do, something grown out of.
In his autobiography, the video game designer Sid Meier discusses how interviewers often ask him about how and why he chose that career. To paraphrase his answer, it's that all children create and play games and he just never grew out of it like most do.
Great quote. And of course no one's gonna scoff at Meier's answer there because he made a successful (not just sustainable) *living* from that childlike curiosity. How many of us do? Bit sad you almost have to have financial or public recognition for it all to seem worthwhile long term. We're definitely living in a time where monetization is too engrained as the end-all-be-all value metric. Rather than things being valuable for themselves.
People do have a playfulness deficit. But as an illustrator, I will confirm creating stuff is HARD. First you have to decide what you want to make. Then you realize that however much you assumed you were gonna suck at it, you actually suck, like, WAY worse. Then you have to get a bunch of materials only to realize nope, that one wasn’t for you, and try again. Then you have to be ok with sucking for a loooong time before you start to meet your own standards. While watching people around you (well digitally around you) doing effortless and amazing things somehow. (It’s ok they had their hair-ripping period too). It’s so much easier to watch tv or play a game or do anything where you don’t have to invent every rule every step of the way.
Creativity is expensive. Partly for the reasons you mentioned, but also because of the time, energy and emotion invested. The reframing of time spent - like playing video games - to time invested in a creative endeavor, leads to the sort of instrumentalization of creativity that you mentioned. With investments, there's an expectation of dividends, and for most people - non creative types specifically - money is the only way to get paid.
Hi Amy. I suspect that, in the case of your ex what you were doing looked a lot like working. It reminds me of Tom Sawyer:
"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."
It's nice you've chosen the creative path. I suspect and hope that most of the time your work IS play.
Thanks for this. Probably THE answer, as you hint at, is the perception of creativity as something children do, something grown out of.
In his autobiography, the video game designer Sid Meier discusses how interviewers often ask him about how and why he chose that career. To paraphrase his answer, it's that all children create and play games and he just never grew out of it like most do.
Great quote. And of course no one's gonna scoff at Meier's answer there because he made a successful (not just sustainable) *living* from that childlike curiosity. How many of us do? Bit sad you almost have to have financial or public recognition for it all to seem worthwhile long term. We're definitely living in a time where monetization is too engrained as the end-all-be-all value metric. Rather than things being valuable for themselves.
People do have a playfulness deficit. But as an illustrator, I will confirm creating stuff is HARD. First you have to decide what you want to make. Then you realize that however much you assumed you were gonna suck at it, you actually suck, like, WAY worse. Then you have to get a bunch of materials only to realize nope, that one wasn’t for you, and try again. Then you have to be ok with sucking for a loooong time before you start to meet your own standards. While watching people around you (well digitally around you) doing effortless and amazing things somehow. (It’s ok they had their hair-ripping period too). It’s so much easier to watch tv or play a game or do anything where you don’t have to invent every rule every step of the way.
Great piece.
Creativity is expensive. Partly for the reasons you mentioned, but also because of the time, energy and emotion invested. The reframing of time spent - like playing video games - to time invested in a creative endeavor, leads to the sort of instrumentalization of creativity that you mentioned. With investments, there's an expectation of dividends, and for most people - non creative types specifically - money is the only way to get paid.
Hi Amy. I suspect that, in the case of your ex what you were doing looked a lot like working. It reminds me of Tom Sawyer:
"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."
It's nice you've chosen the creative path. I suspect and hope that most of the time your work IS play.