The Creative Mind

From Franz Kafka’s letters (inspo for when the going gets tough, just do something/anything):

Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.

Oliver Burkeman on what people who’d like to keep making a living from creativity should do in the face of AI:

"For me, it means two things. First: that AI tools belong in my workflow only to the extent that they help me achieve the overarching goals of human connection. This is the Amish approach to technology: first, clarify your values; then adop

The trick is having this help us, by creating a creative tension that makes us want to be better, instead of discouraging us. We must be OK with never arriving, and crave the work anyways.

-Austin Kleon

When I watch a Miyazaki film I can’t help but think about his attunement to the world, the presence it requires to transmute the real world into a fantastical one. That’s the interesting contradiction of writers and artists, I suppose: alienation is a necessity, but so is participation. The point of getting better is to be more in the world.

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is

The truth is that one day you hate yourself, and the next day you can’t wait to use your gifts

-Adam Jk

“Recognizing that people's reactions don't belong to you is the only sane way to create. If people enjoy what you've created, terrific. If people ignore what you've created, too bad. If people misunderstand what you've created, don't sweat it. And what if people absolutely hate what you've created? What if people attack you with savage vitriol, and

For his first 6 years of trying to be a songwriter, Paul Simon wrote terrible songs. “They were all terrible,” his biographer Robert Hilburn said, “I found his old demos—there’s about 50 of them—and it’s unbelievable: there isn’t one good song.” Finally, in the fall of 1963, Simon made a vow: After spending those first 6 years mostly “copying what

Our creations are more impactful when we’re focused on using personal experience as a guiding force as opposed to being objectively accurate.

Humans don’t care about perfect because we’re far from it.

-common discourse

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

—Mary Oliver