You are right. Excessive consumption can get in the way of creation. However, I think consumption can also inform creation.
I have recently made a conscious decision to comment more-often and submit more links to Hacker News. I want to create, engage, contribute and create more content. The transition from using HN as a tech RSS reader to actually engaging more with the community has been a really refreshing one. I do not feel that time spent writing this comment is time wasted. It is time contributed and, hopefully sometimes, appreciated.
PS - Upvote for the _why quote alone :)
when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.
PPS - I enjoyed the effects of reading your post ;)
Yeah, honestly, there's a weird dichotomy here. The post mentions things like reading in the bathroom, or reading on the way to work, or whatever. But there's nothing inherent in those that doesn't mean you can't also be creating when you get home. I suppose there is a mention of getting home and just reading/watching TV/playing games on electronics, but other than that every other “excessive consumption” example isn't even necessarily in the way of creating. If your mind is also scanning for ideas while you read, all of those situations can in fact be boons to creation rather than obstacles.
I agree, is not consuming prevents creating, it's consuming too much takes time from creating. In that sense, developing a good filter for crap would allow you to consume faster leaving more time for creating.
A second issue is that it's assuming that if you develop an efficient filter for incoming crap, that filter will be applied to what you generate. And that if that filter threshold goes beyond the level of your own ability to create, all you do is crap and you stop creating. The input filter does not have to be the same as the output filter.
You express exactly what I was trying to. If you read HN all day and write no code that is a bad day for creation. If you code as much as you can and broaden your mind by reading HN in your downtime that is probably a good balance.
I find HN is a pretty good filter for incoming crap.
You are right. Excessive consumption can get in the way of creation. However, I think consumption can also inform creation.
Excessive consumption can also get in the way of quality consumption.
Analogy: I remember the days when Times Square in New York was a free-for-all of adult themed establishments. Sometimes, this sort of over the top shouting makes you want and appreciate what's being advertised even less.
Analogy with music: I find that many mainstream audiences are immune to many musical subtleties and often have only the crudest understanding of rhythm. Many such people are unable to hold a melody in their heads, much less process complex melodies. Music used to be a special and rare thing to be cherished, sought out, and paid attention to. Now it's a background thing that we largely tune out.
What's really disturbing about reading and writing suffering from this phenomenon is that writing is frozen cognition. If there is so much to be read that we are tuning it out, then what's the point? If we are reading so much that we are reading without deep cognition, then really we are hardly reading at all.
I have recently made a conscious decision to comment more-often and submit more links to Hacker News. I want to create, engage, contribute and create more content. The transition from using HN as a tech RSS reader to actually engaging more with the community has been a really refreshing one. I do not feel that time spent writing this comment is time wasted. It is time contributed and, hopefully sometimes, appreciated.
PS - Upvote for the _why quote alone :)
when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.
PPS - I enjoyed the effects of reading your post ;)