Towards Patterns for Creativity
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I have some quibbles with some of his conclusions, but there are a few points worth culling from Merlin Mann’s speech at MacWorld this past January:
- “Creativity is a way of seeing the world, it is a way of behaving, it is a way of understanding how things that may seem unrelated could actually be related.”
- “When you become a professional creative person, having ideas is the least of your problems.”
- “Ideas are cheap, making them into something awesome is super-hard.”
- “Even if it’s just something you do as an avocation — for fun — it’s a job. It’s work.”
- “There’s stuff you want to do that you may not even realize you want to do.”
His general themes — that creative endeavours require work, sacrifice and blocks of uninterrupted time, and that there may be archetypal patterns to making ideas into something we can share and interact with — are spot on.
There’s also a video on YouTube but it’s 27 minutes, with technical difficulties and a fair bit of wandering jocularity, which is why I’m presenting a condensed version here.
