notes on the creative process
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they
did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it,
they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.
—Steve Jobs
did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it,
they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.
—Steve Jobs
Christian • Create Zettel From Reading Notes According to the Principle of Atomicity • Zettelkasten Method
Creative people make connections between pre-existing ideas
Always work (note, write) from your own interest, never from what you think you should be noting or writing. Trust your own interest.
Petya K. Grady • Issue 104: The Reading Life of... Celine Nguyen
Focus on what interests you, not what others expect of you
Things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. I must graft. I must water, as with lettuce. Ripening goes on in my mind. So I’m always working at a great many things at the same time.
Joan Miro • I Work Like a Gardener
Ideas, if watered regularly, are always ripening in the mind.
In 1817, the poet John Keats wrote a letter to his brothers to share this exciting realization. “At once it struck me,” Keats wrote, “what quality went to form a Man of Achievement … Negative Capability.” Keats explains that “Negative Capability” is “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching... See more
the ability to stick things out and weather storms of uncertainty is what makes a man of achievement
You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results...Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.3
Celine Nguyen • In Praise of Writing on the Internet
Outcomes/success often lags behind your daily actions… be patient
Writing for Substack feels pleasantly furtive to me. None of my academic friends or acquaintances know about my little blog, and I’d be kind of embarrassed if they found out about it—my posts are earnest and often clumsy, and my cartoons are, um, artless. But I am enjoying the fact that writing, for this platform at least, is beginning to feel like... See more
Isaac Kolding on Substack
Being an anonymous creative frees you up to create naiive, sincere and imperfect work - and find joy in it.
Most of the time, “What should I do with my life?” is a terrible question. “What should I do with this tennis serve?” “What should I do with this line at Starbucks?” “What should I do with this traffic jam?” “How should I respond to the anger I feel welling up in my chest?” These are better questions. Excellence is the next five minutes,
... See moreTimothy Ferriss • Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World
Once the search is in progress, something will be found . It’s a strategy for finishing, a strategy for trusting in my ability to complete a work.