Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with creativity

Hobbies that lend themselves well to creative/sentimental gifts?

unid41 — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 15:35:50 -0800

I don't have any particularly creative hobbies. With my free time while I'm completely alone in quarantine, I would like to explore and hopefully pick up a new hobby. I'm especially interested in a hobby which lends itself well to nice sentimental gifts. I'm open to any suggestions - even very obscure ones. I honestly don't have any "natural" artistic talent, so I would be starting very much from scratch. I would prefer not to spend a lot on materials (<$100 initial budget, preferably much less) to get started. I would also like to give people close to me (my girlfriend, family, close friends) personally made gifts, but I can never think of anything that I can currently accomplish that will look better than something a first grader did in art class.

Interrogating the archive

mykescipark — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 09:21:07 -0800

Lately I've come into possession of the massive personal audio archive of a deceased underground music figure from decades ago. As I've been making my way through it, it's got me thinking about how and why we archive -- and I'm thinking specifically about folks who are creating a body of work, not just the collecting of unrelated personal effects by your average person over a lifetime. It feels like something that's been discussed a lot in the literary and art worlds, but I just don't have anything to hand. (I should specify that I'm looking for philosophical essays, books, etc., on the subject - writers who have tackled the impulses behind such archives, not just catalogues raisonné or descriptions of the archives themselves. This article is one way into the subject.)

Help me think of a tech job that isn't mind-numbingly boring?

vocativecase — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 11:54:30 -0800

I am a PhD student with a couple of years before I finish. I don't anticipate wanting to apply for postdocs/professorships, etc. after I graduate. I talk with some people who have gone into tech after finishing PhDs in my field, and the work they do sounds like it would really depress me. My research involves doing stuff with a bunch of buzzwords: 'scientific computing', 'machine learning' with 'deep neural network architectures', 'data visualization', statistical modeling, very much 'big data' kind of stuff. Is there a niche for me to work that will be gratifying? My academic field is being notoriously and rapidly engineerified, much to its detriment, in my belief. Tech is absorbing a lot of researchers, but from my conversations with colleagues who have gone that route, they end up doing pretty boring, uncreative stuff, very much different from their previous research projects. Because, you know, capitalism and profit, etc. But unlike the few colleagues I have talked to, I have more a more attractive skillset from an industry perspective, the ones I mentioned above, because my research has always been more 'computational'.

I really want to do something that is, at the very least, creative with my time. I can deal with a pointless corporate profiteering setup as long as it's not depressingly boring, at least for the time it takes me to figure out what else I might want to do with the money-making portion of my life moving forward.

Do any of you who work in 'the industry' have specific ideas about whether there are particular niches I could fill that would meet that criteria? I don't really want to be a 'data scientist' or 'data engineer' or whatever the oxymoronic and/or redundant lingo is these days, but if there are jobs that fall under that rubric that I should look into, I'm happy to hear about them.

I didn't want to say upfront what my academic discipline is, but I can say that the data I work with most of the time is human speech (acoustics and phonetics). I just really don't imagine I would find it the least bit gratifying to write grammars for Alexa/Siri, etc. I feel dread about my graduation because I'm a sensitive person and it would destroy my soul to do stuff I found completely non-creative all day. Before starting the PhD I worked large corporate food service (you know, 'entry level'), and, yeah, I hated it. Yeah, I'd get paid a lot more to do stuff in tech, but to me that wouldn't come anywhere close to making up for the pain of drudgery.

Do you have any suggestions for specific things to look into or people to chat with?

What should I do with my life and newfound freedom?

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 00:08:53 -0800

I went "straight through" from college to med school to residency and the training highway is ending. Phew! I can choose to do whatever I want with my time! What? How? Medical school and training was kind of all-encompassing for me, in that whenever I wasn't studying I felt like I should be studying, even when I wasn't necessarily enthusiastic about certain rotations I still had to show enthusiasm as a medical student, and whenever I wasn't seeing patients I was still reading all the time, thinking about my patients, writing notes or manuscripts. It took a lot of work and energy to get to where I am today. I love my job and the perspective on humanity my training has given me. But I also put off a lot of other interests - I did maintain them to some degree, but I wasn't really able to produce any substantial amount of creative work because I just didn't have the mental space or energy or time. I did not feel free to take some intellectual risks because medicine is a rather failure-adverse field. I attended one of those schools where everybody does something very impressive and shiny-sounding. I feel like everything I did, while existing in the space of medical training, had this component of "how will it look on a CV?" or "what doors will this open up?" Even though I did enjoy most of these activities, I never did anything that was 100% divorced from that value system. Even the freaking poetry I wrote that ended up winning a prize ended up on my resume at some point.

The end of training is the first time in my adult life where I can choose to do whatever I want with my time (and the rest of my life!). I'm not tied to grades or training obligations. It was for this reason that I ultimately did not choose to do a fellowship (more training), despite really enjoying that particular subspecialty and considering it seriously for my career, because I felt like it would be the "default" thing to do, to take that choice of how to spend my time/energy out of my hands again, and to stay within the comfortable familiarity of the academic training treadmill. I look at other research fellowships and prizes available to young, motivated, and highly trained people like myself, and reflect that over the years, I have learned to paint myself as a desirable candidate to those fellowships, but I also know that at this point pursuing one would do little to further my own understanding of myself and how to live a good and meaningful life. I love my work, find it fascinating, and care about doing a good job, but I'm not sure if loving my job means that I need to devote my all to my career. I don't think my job is taking over my identity, but I do feel like there is a risk of that happening if I don't pause and reflect on what I'm doing.

I am also nervous to leave the academic training bubble... my mentors are mostly people who have been in academia their whole lives. I can't tell if I'm walking away from something that I'd be insane to walk away from - like, what becoming a professor of x medical specialty at Ivory Tower Institution is the best job out there? I don't know. I ask because realistically, that's the main thing that my training has given me the opportunity to do - if I wanted to become a community doctor, I definitely did not need this academic pedigree. I feel like I could conceivably be interested in returning to academia later (if it's possible), but I can't will myself to continue in this system without understanding what the alternatives are, because without that understanding, I'd be "defaulting into" academia rather than actively choosing it.

I work in what is considered a "lifestyle" field so I have flexible hours and a good job market. My hunch is that I would be happy if I could work in medicine in such a way that I could also carve out time and space to work on creative pursuits. I'm nervous though, because I've never actually incorporated creative pursuits into my life in a systematic or sustained way since I've been in school/training for my entire life, and I'm afraid that I could leave my academic nest and then also be stuck at a non-academic job (I've heard they are higher-paying but also can be more of a grind) and have no infrastructure or roadmap to actually go forth and pursue my creative hobbies. What if medical training has really squeezed out all the creativity in me?

What do I need to do to move forward in my life? What steps can I take to transition to this new freedom, and to start to pursue my hobbies? Has anybody else has been in this kind of situation, maybe went through an intense time in training or school, had a type of all-encompassing career or a type of career in which many of their peers work very intensely, and then re-defined things for themselves? Anybody ever leave academia or academic medicine and come running back, or spend some years as an attending before returning to a fellowship?

I am kind of like this previous askme about being a doctor and having no life, except I don't feel burned out at my job, just maybe a little cynical about the rat race and the parts of me that I put on hold to get here.

More books like Free Play?

threecheesetrees — Sat, 13 Jun 2020 04:27:37 -0800

I've just finished Stephen Nachmanovitch's Free Play, and I found it's mix of discussion of the creative process with a pinch of self help, and an overall pretty gentle tone really helpful. I'd like to read more things like that. This ask from last year gets close to what I'm after, but what I've read of some of the suggestions there doesn't quite hit the spot (Wishcraft is maybe closest?). I'm a music person, so something in that field would be ideal, although I'm totally open to perspectives from other mediums. What would be fantastic would be something that addresses the anxieties of the creative process. Maybe something by a psychologist? I guess the advice I'm looking for is "this is how to stay engaged with, and keep finding pleasure in your practice" rather than "this is how to succeed as an artist".

Deck of cards with creative problem-solving prompts

Lorc — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 12:17:39 -0800

Years ago I remember a deck of cards that had prompts on them for approaching a problem differently. This was a physical deck of cards you could buy, but there was also a fairly classy web page that would turn up random draws for the deck. When I try googling for it I run across a bunch of business-focussed ones that talk about R&D, market trends and teamwork. The deck I remember was focussed on creative endeavours. I want to say it was the original, or at least a very internet-notable example.

The only specific card I remember was something along the lines of "what if you started at the end and worked backwards?"

If anyone remembers what I'm talking about, or has a link, then i would be grateful.

What's next in this this list songs?

Calicatt — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 08:13:36 -0800

I write fiction and like to have a song on repeat in my ear for hours and hours when I'm writing. Having the emotional swell of music is really helpful, but there's some mystical unknown thing that makes a song work for me whereas another "similar" song won't work. Maybe there's something in common I don't see. I'd love recommendations! Below is a list of songs that have worked really well for this purpose in the past. Any suggestions are welcome, though I've already tried going through the below artists' work so I think I've tapped all of their songs that work for this purpose for me.

-Maggie Rogers Alaska
-Kiiara Gold
-Santigold Disparate Youth
-Grimes Go
-Grimes Oblivion
-Chainsmokers Don't Let Me Down
-Phantogram Black Out Days
-Phantogram Don't Move

And the wall is blank

LoonyLovegood — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:40:06 -0800

I used to be very creative, but for the past few years, my mind feels like it's hitting a wall when I try to think of stuff. What is causing this blank, and how do I go back to where I was? I used to write a lot, fanfiction, what ifs, etc., and always had ideas for the next great story. These days, I have a hard time coming up with anything. I thought maybe I was using the internet too much, spending too much time on TV Tropes etc. and blocking my own creative juices by overthinking stuff, but I'm not sure that's it. I still daydreamed a lot until a few years ago, recently it's been pretty blank inside my brain.

I do not take any antidepressants (I went off the last one two years ago after one year of use), only thyroid replacement hormones and a progesterone pill to fight my endometriosis (been on it for almost four years now). I don't feel particulary depressed; I am functional, I meet friends, I can get excited about stuff. I read fiction for fun. I use the internet a lot, though. I also generally ruminate a lot, and fairly randomly these days. I also live in a foreign country and generally switch between that language and English, without much chance to use my native tongue. That said, I have almost always read fiction exclusively in English and it didn't use to a problem ten years ago.

This happens when I'm between jobs/semesters and when I am fully employed. I have had stressful jobs or studies, but I had those before and still wrote and thought. In fact, writing helped me with the stress of high school and bullying. I would imagine myself as someone cool with awesome friends, or as a Pokémon trainer or in Hogwarts. I still love Pokémon, so I sometimes try to visualize my cool life as a trainer when I have trouble falling asleep, but it's hard to really grasp one story and stick with it; my mind keeps jumping around.

I wish I could go back to writing a lot, and having ideas. Looking at advice blogs or books about writing doesn't seem to help, I always get stuck when it's time to visualize what I want to happen. It really feels like my brain hits a concrete wall sometimes, where there might be ideas behind it, but I can't cross it.

What is happening, why is it happening, and what do I?

How can I make the most of a solo creative retreat over a long weekend?

shallowcenter — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 10:16:28 -0800

Next weekend (Friday through Sunday) I’ll be going off by myself for a solo creative retreat. Writing, drawing, painting, and reading are at the top of the agenda. Maybe some journaling and reflecting as well? Anyway, wondering if you’ve done something similar and have any thoughts on how to maximize this great opportunity. Thanks!

What is your creative/artistic hobby/outlet and why do you like it?

ToddBurson — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 07:36:02 -0800

What do you, artsy person, do and why do you like it? What's your story? Do you paint? Computer-based art? Cast resin? Topiary gardens? Create and run ARGs? Translate obscure previously-untranslated poetry? Tell me about it. Especially if it's something less common. I'm big into DIY ethos which results in doing a lot of creative/crafty projects, and I've always loved the creative process. However DIY stuff involves a ton of different, unrelated, discrete projects - something needs doin' and I learn what I need to do it, I do it, and that's that until something else needs doing.

I would like to try developing an actual creative skill. Say painting for example. Painters can continually learn new techniques, improve existing ones, etc. If you ever had some creative idea you wanted to express you have a go-to medium.

Trying things often costs money or other resources though, and I'd like to minimize what I spend learning what I don't like. I figure getting some perspectives might help me prioritize what to try first.

Mozart, asked how his music come to him, said all of a piece. Y/N ?

dancestoblue — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 03:37:02 -0800

Overheard this, want to run it down, so as to get it right. Mozart, when asked did he write piano first, or violin, according to this snatch of conversation overheard, Mr. Mo' said something to the effect that it all came to him at once, all of a piece. The guy is fascinating, I love to read his quotes, I don't recall hearing this before. Help? He's fun to read even if just because he was such a smart-ass, he gets me to laughing, smiling.

My understanding is that the flick Amadeus was pretty much Hollywood, not adhering much to any True Facts, but reading Mozart's quotes makes me think that Tom Hulce nailed his exuberance and his smarts, too.

I'm just hoping someone here can direct me to that quote, if in fact it's accurate.

I read about Stephen King stepping out of a car at a beautiful resort in Colorado and the entire book "The Shining" came to him, all of a piece. I love to imagine Mozart getting his music in this way.

I've been nosing around for half an hour, duckduckgo, a million-billion quotes pages -- no luck. I'm certain it's the first quote on a Mozart quote page that *you* go to -- wanna share?

There are only five original ideas in any century. Who said it?

treblekicker — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 07:26:15 -0800

I thought this was an Oscar Wilde quote but internet searching is making me doubt this as I'm finding nothing. Is the quote correct? Who said it? Am I misremembering it? Can you all help me attribute this quote and if not remembered correctly tell me what it is instead?

Creative boost needed

KateViolet — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 02:48:37 -0800

I work in a creative role and need to come up with ideas and solutions, which has always been something I've been pretty good at. But lately, I just feel very uninspired. What do you do to boost your creativity when you're low on ideas?

Have you reconnected to childlike storytelling play?

Cozybee — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 04:24:13 -0800

I lost my ability to enjoy telling made-up stories to myself, and I want it back. Do you have any advice/tips/success stories? I've been reading Gretchen Ruben's "The Happiness Project" as recommended in Books on taking life from "okay" to "good". Chapter 5 is about having fun, and she mentions the advice she received to think of what was fun for you as a child and try reconnecting with that.

Well, I know exactly what was fun for me as a child. I wandered around the house or neighborhood or wherever we went for vacation, telling myself stories in my head in which casts of characters had various adventures. When I was with friends we'd often tell stories together. When I read a book, afterwards I'd go off and burn off all the creative energy generated making up additional stories about similar characters or worlds. Sometimes these stories were actually rather complex, lots of worldbuilding, large casts of characters, weird moral dilemmas...

This lasted until around middle school. I started to become aware (through a variety of sources) that my play was rife with cliches. I think I once shyly showed a science teacher a story and she said something like "yes, very standard post-apocalyptic trifle" (if that's not what she actually said, that's what it felt like). I got involved with online writing communities and my technical skills improved rapidly but I became deeply self-conscious about "Mary Sues" and other hallmarks of poor storytelling, and it completely destroyed my joy in unfiltered storytelling to myself. I felt weird and embarrassed about the purple-eyed (yes, yes) character and others whose adventures I'd built.

At least, that's how I remember it happening and what I blame it on, but maybe it would have happened anyway-- I relate very deeply to the opening anecdote of hyperboleandahalf's second essay on depression where her ability to enjoy imaginary play just... disappears. I try to imagine myself once again telling the stories of Uncle and Nephew Scissors flying about the house to defeat The Coming Darkness and I feel like I'd no longer be able to immerse myself in it enough to be enjoying myself.

Meanwhile, I've always wanted to write stories and I've suffered from a constant on-off writer's block that bears a weird resemblance to the loss of my imaginative play, because the self-consciousness about getting my ideas down write slowly chokes the fun out of any writing project I start. I mention this because one reason I'd like imaginative play back is that maybe it would refresh my writing inspiration, also.

But it occurs to me that maybe I've simply accepted this as hopeless and actually this is something it is possible to reconnect to/get back. So I turn to you, wise mefites-- expansive creative play that's been killed off via self-consciousness, can it be resurrected? how?

Did I ever really know any of this stuff? Can I ever really know it?

gemutlichkeit — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 19:19:45 -0800

There are a number of things I learned in school that I never really "understood," like certain aspects of grammar in foreign languages, or theorems, or programming concepts. Maybe I transiently or superficially understood things, or got by with pattern recognition or test-taking skills... I understood things enough to do fine on the test but not enough to be creative with those concepts. Have you ever revisited high school or college topics later in life? How did that experience compare? I have considered that college/school learning is different, paced differently, and that I was focused on learning so many other things at the time (making friends, being involved in extracurricular activities, figuring out how to balance getting ahead vs smelling roses, etc.). But it's not like life is getting simpler or slower-paced, either... although I guess the pressure to perform is definitely no longer there.

I feel like when I was younger, there were things that I reveled in understanding... I remember playing and memorizing some piano pieces and being able to really break it down, and it was just this clarity that has kind of stuck with me (okay, or maybe part muscle memory) and I just don't feel like I really have that in other areas of my life (or even in piano) these days. I don't know if it's because the pieces and the concepts just got more challenging and my cup is at capacity, or what it is... I'm not sure if that kind of understanding and appreciation of the world... that kind of mental clarity... is only for people who are simply on another plane of intelligence compared to me. I am tempted to review the stuff that I never really got in college (and likely high school, because lol let's be real here, I can barely integrate these days) and wonder, would it be a different experience, or would things be similarly fuzzy? Would I eke out only a superficial comprehension because I just haven't the right substrate or bandwidth?

Am especially interested in the areas of languages, music, physics, math, literature.

Discussion of artistic processes from marginalised communities

divabat — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 18:59:00 -0800

I LOVED this behind-the-scenes documentary of Eugene Lee Yang's coming-out dance video and especially appreciated the discussion mid-video about the trickiness of getting people engaged in such a personal project as well as doing all the outside logistical work in addition to the creative work. What are some other sources (writing, video, audio, anything) of other creatives talking about similar matters, especially those from marginalised communities?

Help me find an interactive art or toy for my nightstand!

Flying Saucer — Sun, 09 Jun 2019 08:29:24 -0800

I have room on my nightstand for something "fun." I have plenty of photos and figurines and knick-knacks throughout my house, so I thought this item could be a chance for some interactivity and creativity -- something to inspire me when getting up in the morning or to fuel my creativity before sleep. I've had things like these word cubes or magnet toys, but I was looking for something...else. Something that changes shape, or color, words, whether by my actions or just randomly.

Any ideas? Extra points if it requires no power, or only batteries, instead of being plugged in.

Thanks!

usesless and lovely

elephantsvanish — Mon, 06 May 2019 10:47:06 -0800

Can you think of a term, concept, and/or framework for creating things where the output is incidental, but the process itself is what is important? I can think of lots of related things - the concept of a wicked problem, Simone Giertz's Sh*tty Robots, DIY ethos, "fail better" - but they all are missing elements of what's in my head... I'm thinking specifically of projects with a certain playfulness of spirit, where you set off to create something, but the learning that comes from the set of decisions, questions, weird and clunky aspects, and the practice of making something are much more meaningful than the literal outcome itself.

This is something that lots of people do formally and informally in lots of ways I think, but I would be interested in reading and learning more from deliberate proponents of this philosophy/ethos, especially in unexpected places, and from folks who treat this in a playful, reflective, sort of goofy introspective process (in that sense, Simone Giertz is the best fit I can think of right now). Thanks!

Say Cheese

andreapandrea — Sun, 02 Dec 2018 08:22:45 -0800

My family (4 adults in their 30s, 2 adults in their 70s and 3 kids - 3,4 and 6) are going on a Disney Cruise and have purchased the photo package, which means someone will take our picture many many times all week long. How can we make these photos more interesting? At the end of the cruise we receive a folder of pictures of us by the pool, at pirate night, dressed fancy for dinner, standing by Mickey, etc. I can see how the folder will likely just contain a series of standing and smiling photos, which are very nice to have a few of, but ultimately not at all compelling to look at, and don’t make very interesting conversation pieces for the future when we try to remind the little kids how amazingly cool we are.
What would you do, in our situation, to make these photos more fun? Assume general willingness by all members of the party. We are already bringing one matching outfit, also pirate costumes and fancy clothes, so costumes can play a role but cannot be the only part of this. We would be willing to do some preparation or choreography or really anything that will make us want to look at these things after this vacation. Thank you!

mermaidcafe is creating creative survival

mermaidcafe — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 10:01:47 -0800

I’ve wanted to do a Patreon for my writing and art, and I think I’ve narrowed my focus to a theme that really excites me. I’d love to get feedback and ideas for fine-tuning it/figuring out reward structure. I’m widely published in a range of genres. My MFA is in poetry so I've published a lot there, and I’ve also published a lot of music journalism, short fiction, creative nonfiction, and book reviews. I also have a lot of editorial experience. Visual art is a newer thing for me. I make abstract art in ink and watercolor, in addition to making decorative items. I have my share of fans and repeat customers, but I definitely have more name recognition in poetry.

I know Patreons are most successful when the creator already has followers, so I’ve been struggling with how to incorporate my range of work into one campaign. I finally hit on an idea that I like and can be versatile with, and I think others would be interested.

I’d like to devote my campaign to discussing what I call “creative survial.” I can talk about that using my question history here alone. In the past few years, those questions reveal my struggles with chronic illness, a housefire, ptsd, bipolar II depression, loss of a parent, poverty, and more. But what’s equally present is that throughout that time I also asked questions about writing and art making and sustaining creative work under any circumstance. I’ve learned so much about how to use my creativity to cope, whether it’s a game I made up to deal with motion sickness or writing fiction that contains my truth. I’m well into writing a memoir that addresses a lot of those themes.

For the Patreon, I’d write blog posts on those topics and would also feature interviews with others that are pertinent, plus I could include excerpts from writing. I could also offer artwork, like hi-res scans of paintings or photographs, as well as sending physical objects through the mail. (I am still figuring out how I can relate visual art to the concept and would welcome ideas.) I don’t expect to become Patreon royalty but I like the idea of making a little extra money while I explore this subject that I love and growing my platform for my memoir.

I’d love to know how that reads to you as a campaign idea. Is it either too general or too specific? In what ways could it be expanded or compressed? Is there a better term than "creative survival?" I'm especially looking for reward ideas. I have some good things to offer, but am still working out how much to offer and how much it's worth monetarily. I’ve been reading a lot about Patreon in general, but I’m eager to hear thoughts on this campaign in particular.

My creative mojo is back, and I can't get off the couch.

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 07:02:25 -0800

I recently surmounted an enormous creative block which put me off-course for nearly two decades. This is hugely exciting. Since doing so, however, I've fallen into a pretty cavernous state of lethargy. This is hugely problematic. (n.b.: This question is inspired by my particular art form, but the situation could apply to anyone in music, writing, visual arts, whatever, so I'm leaving it vague.)

So, I've spent my entire life identifying as someone who is passionate about, and was for many years very prolific in, a creative practice. I began as a frighteningly prolific child/adolescent and became a working professional by my mid-twenties ... at which point I suddenly suffered a kind of creative exhaustion, for lack of a better term, which lasted the next 15 years.

Starting in 2015, the mojo came back out of nowhere, and I began working on a major "comeback" project, of sorts. My initial goal was simply to finish it, since I'd spent so many years not finishing things or half-assing them. Once it was finished - at great length and great expense - I was so enamored of the results that I now wanted it to be out there in the world in a bigger way. I spent months getting myself reacquainted with the business / marketing / etc., angles of putting something out in 2018, and while it was overwhelming, it also felt manageable if I could break it into small enough pieces.

By all objective measures, this is precisely the time when I should have been ramping up my efforts, trying to make connections, getting other people as excited about this work as I was about making it. But, over the last several months, with my proposed date of release/unveiling fast approaching, I've felt less and less compelled to continue. I've tried drawing up a daily creative schedule to put in time on practice, promotion, and other segmented things, but I've failed time and again to stick with it. Even on a day-to-day level, trying to put one organizational foot in front of the other, I feel myself lapsing back into a kind of useless repose. Basically, I feel depressed - physically incapable of helping myself - and I haven't a clue why.

A few thoughts: I am indeed happy with the thing as it exists, and I recognize and celebrate that as an achievement unto itself. I'm trying not to exert too much pressure to do this "perfectly," or to judge myself about whether I'm getting enough recognition or praise from random people out in the world. But I am mystified by this precipitous and seemingly instantaneous drop in my ability to push forward with a lifelong dream. I've spent a lot of time trying to source the feeling - fear of failure, fear of success, fear of judgment, some other unconscious expression? - but I can't get a handle on it.

Is this common? Has anyone else returned to a "calling" after years away and experienced this kind of paralyzing lassitude? How on Earth does this happen, and how can I help myself kick the old engine back into gear now that (one would think) the hardest work is over?

A humanities-based school in India in response to STEM schooling

mecran01 — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 12:58:25 -0800

I came across a brief article once about a group of businessmen in (India?) who were sponsoring a humanities-based college for their engineers in order to foster creativity and thereby increase their competitiveness. Am I imagining this? Can you help me find it?

Article about developing taste as a prerequisite to developing skill?

scose — Sun, 01 Apr 2018 16:16:56 -0800

Within the past couple of years, I read an article about building skills in creative fields. The main point was that you start by developing taste, and then there is a period where your own work falls short of your standards, but with enough effort you can reach a point where you are satisfied with your own work. Anyone know the source?

are you there, me? it's me, me

icosahedron — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 20:45:36 -0800

What are some scientific, non-woo explanations of the role of the subconscious mind in creativity and memory, as well as exercises for getting more "in touch" with the subconscious? I've had personal experiences where I've invented or remembered ideas on the spot—on stage, or in conversation—that I don't remember consciously thinking about. They just came out of my mouth, and I later judged them to be quite creative or funny ideas. The quality of the thought felt different too: like something was emerging or whispering or trying to say itself from deep in my head. Very strange! I'd like to tap into this ability more consciously and train it.

I've heard from pop cognitive science explainers that working memory is "conscious, verbal, and error-prone" but long-term memory is "unconscious, non-verbal, highly parallel, and processes rapidly." I'd like to see a more rigorous source on how working memory becomes long-term memory and how long-term memory is accessed.

I tried googling a couple of keywords but mostly came up with New-Age-type "The Secret" results. Would love to see more scientific studies, experiments, or personal accounts.

Related questions: what percent of "you" is conscious vs. subconscious vs. unconscious, and are there other categories of thought? Can the subconscious be said to have a personality? When you make a decision "rationally," how much of it is immovably based on "gut" feeling?

I'm particularly interested in any sources on the role of the subconscious in scientific and mathematical intuition, comedy, or artistic creation. (BTW, "sleeping on it" to figure out a proof has never worked for me.)

Help me embrace being bad at hobbies (without judging myself)

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 06:04:28 -0800

I want to start using my free time to explore more creative hobbies, like drawing and writing (or, ideally, combining these things and making short comics). I've always wanted to make things, and right now I spend way too much of my free time mindlessly refreshing social media and reading the news compulsively. But I'm scared to try -- I'm having a hard time accepting the feelings of anxiety and inadequacy that come from being a beginner at something, and also wrestling with feelings of guilt over doing creative things. I know some of this anxiety stems back to childhood. I had an emotionally abusive parent and some of that abuse involved yelling at me or punishing me for "inappropriate" drawings and creative writing. (I drew some weird stuff, though nothing violent or upsetting, and my parent thought it meant I was "on drugs" or somehow "crazy," and some of it was perceived as "perverted" or "blasphemous.") So from a very early age I always had to hide my work, and even when it was hidden, my parent would ransack my belongings when I wasn't around to find things to yell at me about. That went on until I left home. So... there's that.

I was also involved in a competitive sport as a kid, with a coach who could get similarly abusive, and both the coach and my parent would yell at me if I did poorly at a competition and "failed." (Once after a competition where I messed up, they both gave me the silent treatment for the whole ride home and a whole day after. The coach kept up the silent treatment for a week of practices, and my parent thought I was "overreacting" for being upset.) So... there's also that.

I've been in therapy and have addressed these past experiences. And I'm not in contact with the parent. I have no reason to fear any sort of repercussions for writing or drawing now, and I have a secure living situation where I don't have to fear people finding my things and judging or punishing me for them, but it still scares me to think about creating stuff. And that fear has morphed into more general fears: what right do I have to think I'm entitled to create, there's already too much content in the world, I don't have anything original to say and would just take up space, creative work is self-indulgent when you're not actually practiced and good at it, I'm too old to start learning, I hate being a beginner and messing up and failing, if I'm not perfect and talented from the start I'm a failure, etc.

I can also be really judgmental of other people when I perceive them as being "entitled" or "self-obsessed" or "self-indulgent". I'm trying to work on this, too, but I feel like I become one of the people I roll my eyes at were I to start thinking of myself as some kind of "artist" or "writer" when I am really not good enough at either of those things to call myself either. (I know the answer is "stop being a jerk and rolling your eyes at anyone!" but I'm not quite there yet.)

Even typing up all of this feels embarrassing and trite, but I can't figure out how to get over my perfectionism. I know how common this question is, but any advice is appreciated. I can't seem to just embrace the "feel the fear and do it anyway" ethos, I think because it's not just fear but a sort of revulsion at looking self-important or arrogant or deluded about my abilities or showing off. Forcing myself doesn't seem to work. Telling myself that no one else has to know or see doesn't help because I keep judging myself -- I feel like my efforts are not just wastes of paper, but somehow make me a worse person for having tried, or reveal that I'm a selfish person for being so indulgent. I know this is not a logical way to feel, but I can't seem to shake it. If anyone else has grappled with similar experiences, I'd love to hear what works for you.