tchotchke #46: Has being good at admin ruined my life?
In a fast-paced world full of intense economic/scientific/intellectual competition and decreasing opportunities for solitude, it is harder than ever before to justify spending significant time on intangible work that may or may not pay off. You can’t put on your resume—“I spend a lot of time thinking about ideas and scribbling notes that I don’t... See more
Roger’s Bacon • The Myth of the Myth of the Lone Genius
So many of those who dedicate their careers to creativity have, like many of us, been motivated by a sometimes unconscious desire to reconcile the various contradictions of our era: between utility and transcendence, a yearning for greatness and a belief in the dignity of the everyday, between the work available and the work we want to do.
Samuel W. Franklin • The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History
I spent a year as a creative director doing exactly this. Good salary. Decent title. Work that needed doing. But nothing that required me specifically. Nothing that used the particular way I see the world