Posts tagged creativity
Posts tagged creativity
Brace yourself for the initial angry wave of criticism: how dare you, I hate it, it’s ugly, you’re stupid. The Internet runs on knee-jerk reactions. People will test your work against their pet theories: It is not free, and thus has no value; it lacks community features; I can’t believe you don’t use dotcaps, lampsheets, or pixel scrims; it is not written in Rusp or Erskell; my cat is displeased. The ultimate question lurks beneath these curses: why wasn’t I consulted? You take the criticism into consideration no matter how much vitriol wraps it, file away bug reports where appropriate, reply politely if it’s worth it, and shrug. Then wait a few days. Now comes the more significant feedback—possibly praise, and, if you are lucky, not opinions but problems—things that you can think about and fix. Some people are trusting and friendly; others swear and append “I AM VERY UNHAPPY” to their emails in misdirected righteousness. Again, you must shrug. People are used to complaining to faceless organizations that don’t respect them, and often assume an offensive posture, expecting that a display of anger will gain your attention. They don’t understand that you are the team in I. The only option is politeness—remember always that you are dealing with other primates.
That’s exactly EXACTLY right.
(via soxiam)
So true. I usually hate my project (and myself) a few times before it becomes something good. Then I have to go wrestle with it some more for it to become great.
The Importance of Frustration in the Creative Process
“When we tell stories about creativity, we tend to leave out this phase. We neglect to mention those days when we wanted to quit, when we believed that our problem was impossible. Instead, we skip straight to the breakthrough. We tell the happy ending first.
The danger of this scenario is that the act of feeling frustrated is an essential part of the creative process. Before we can find the answer — before we can even know the question — we must be immersed in disappointment, convinced that a solution is beyond our reach. We need to have wrestled with the problem and lost. Because it’s only after we stop searching that an answer may arrive.” ~From Imagine: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide.