The World Belongs to Those Who Create

https://www.sophiaellis.co/blog/the-world-belongs-to-those-who-create-vs-those-who-consume

by sophiaellis • 9 years ago

89 78 9 years ago

This post really resonated with me, deeply. I've been having almost exactly the same thoughts that the author has had, lately.

I think a lot of us underestimate how essential creative self-expression is to our well being. I've come to the realization that I don't want to just live a regular life, working and consuming, but rather I want to contribute something creative, of my own creation, to the world. Deep inside, I think most people will find their greatest joy in building and creating new things (out of love (and not just as a means of survival)).

jrs235• 9 years ago

Everyone desires to be [a] god. What does a god have the power to do? Create. Naturally everyone wants to create things. When we can't or aren't allowed to create we return towards the other power gods have: the power to destroy. We all want to feel in control. One way to feel that is to create things the other way is to destroy things.

rdiddly2• 9 years ago

And destroy is one of the synonyms of consume.

jack1243star• 9 years ago

"In the end we will be judged. Not by what we have destroyed...but what we have created!" -- Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse, Wolfenstein: The New Order

infiniteparamtr3• 9 years ago

I've been feeling the same way. And "out of love" is a great source for creations, but survival is where I have been drawing my inspiration.

I've gradually been avoiding large cities and crowds and seeking an off-grid lifestyle because it has occurred to me that the founders of places like Rome and America did that very thing.

brad0• 9 years ago

Great write up! I wish I had have known this when I was younger.

If you feel this way start by working on small projects to completion. Everyone starts somewhere.

traviswingo• 9 years ago

This could possibly be the most impactful thing many of us, here, have read (consumed) recently. Bookmarked.

sharemywin• 9 years ago

the problem is the definition of make and create and what has value has changed.

10 thousand years ago people celebrated when a big kill was brought home from the hunt.

5000 years ago people celebrated the seasonal harvests.

100 years ago you put in a good days work at a factory turning a screw but you helped make a car.

today if it's not novel or unique it's not celebrated or valued.

winter_blue3• 9 years ago

Thousands of years ago, people made art, they wrote poems, came up with wonderful stories and mythology. Every culture has some form of human creativity. Whether art, music, or stories and poems passed down through generations. Creativity is a defining characteristic of human beings. To be creative is to be human.

nnd2• 9 years ago

Well, that's what I thought about as well until recently. But the recent advancements in AI make me questions if creativity is truly unique to humans.

mc32• 9 years ago

today if it's not novel or unique it's not celebrated or valued.

Yet let those things go by the wayside (any country where they experienced hyperinflation or went into decline) and the shortcomings become readily apparent.

Even just refuse pickup service -soon you get vermin and contagious diseases. Actual things to worry about.

Electricity and hospitals (neo-natal units and ER, for example).

From the Oakland warehouse fire people realized Fire Marshall safety checks have meaning and impact.

Mundane stuff makes the world go round and allows people to make mountains out of their personal molehills.

georgecarlin• 9 years ago

Excuses excuses my friend!

ldp013• 9 years ago

There's truth to this post but overall I think it's pretty naive.

In a capitalist system the world belongs to those who own and have spare capital to invest vs. those who rent.

Being very good at creating things is a potential pathway from renter to owner, but so is being very good at maintaining things, or managing people, etc. Anything which you can be paid a lot of money for will do.

winter_blue3• 9 years ago

I think the author point was about what would bring the greatest self-fullfillment. It's not necessarily money.

You could be an author or an artist or something else, and have far more fulfillment in life than making 10x working at a job that you're good at but that doesn't bring you as much fulfillment.

ldp013• 9 years ago

Fair enough, but I think it's a simplification of how life really works for most people.

For the average person, the choice to become a successful artist isn't a trade off between more money and more satisfaction. If they fail to become successful they will significantly lose out in terms of life's more basic needs, because they won't have enough money.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I would love to agree with OP. But I don't think human society is there yet.

coldtea• 9 years ago

You could be an author or an artist or something else, and have far more fulfillment in life than making 10x working at a job that you're good at but that doesn't bring you as much fulfillment.

Those who create might be that, but they are notorious for also being fussy, difficult to satisfy their creative urges, and often abuse themselves, etc.

We can also say that you can have tons of fulfillment without either making 10x at some job, or "creating" -- just by enjoying life, friendship, eating, relaxing, traveling, etc.

So, in that sense "the world belongs" to those who can enjoy it.

(Of course if we extend that to the logical extreme, the world belongs to the easily amused. Which might be a valid point).

nnd2• 9 years ago

It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

The only meaningful thing to do in this world is to create, there is nothing else.

thesmallestcat2• 9 years ago

I'd like my creations to be consumed...

tluyben22• 9 years ago

That is something I struggled with: do I like creating or do I like others to consume my creations more? And, if the latter, do I like that more because that is how I make money? I concluded after many years (I am 42) that I like creating. I need consumption of it because I might need money but for me to be happy, only creating would suffice.

infiniteparamtr3• 9 years ago

Yes it is somewhat of a vague statement. But I enjoyed the read because lately I've been trying to discipline myself with:

"The more I browse the internet arbitrarily without purpose - the less effectively my time is spent."

Of course, it sometimes takes a spark of surfing to began the a long-term project. It just gets so easy to consume the ~infinite content of the internet sometimes.

That feeling of joy when you complete even the simplest of modifications of your environment is definitely worth pursuing.

stephengillie3• 9 years ago

If you sleep 6 hours instead of 8, you gain about a day every 2 weeks.

adjkant• 9 years ago

You can also achieve the same thing by sleeping less frequently, but that doesn't work well if you care about being awake at the same time as others always. But right now I have a spare week and will gain an extra day of time this week.

stephengillie3• 9 years ago

Do you mean the 28 hour day? https://xkcd.com/320/

I tried that for exactly 6 days. And went slightly crazy - days were so long that I was splitting them into an A-part and a B-part, just to keep events separate in memory. I wonder if that's what that's what the MIB feels like, in their 37-hour day. [a]

If you can't get a truly flexible schedule for this, 4x10s will kinda work.

[a] http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0119654/quotes

smallnamespace• 9 years ago

That assumes you'll be just as efficient with less sleep over the long term, which seems far from a universal guarantee.

xaedes3• 9 years ago

If you waste 16 hours already you can easily waste 18 hours...

stephengillie3• 9 years ago

People with access to greater mental resources are capable of wasting far more time and energy than the average person.

marzipan• 9 years ago

It's a false dichotomy. Creating by copying and referencing is quite trivial now. We do it all the time and think nothing of it.

Creating original designs, giving them a lot of thought and attention, responding to feedback, and changing workflow as a result, that's still hard. And there are a lot of ways in which you can come up with an innovative spin on old stuff - presentation, cataloging, filtering, recommending, explaining - that isn't "creative output" in the sense we are romanticizing, but provides the same kinds of effect on knowledge.

hyko• 9 years ago

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not a fact.

TACIXAT• 9 years ago

Great post. I just disabled my Facebook account. It was my most visited and least enjoyed site. It is really refreshing to not be constantly opening it. This article really helped frame how I'm feeling about it. I think it's time to cut more consumption out of my life to free up time for making things. I have so many ideas. I don't need to be consuming video game content for hours a day.

k_sh• 9 years ago

I did this a few weeks ago, and I feel less stressed as a result.

If you're trying to spend more time creating things, I suggest you give The War of Art[1] by Steven Pressfield a read. It put words to a gnawing feeling I've felt since my late teenage years, but never knew how to confront.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/15...

icanhackit• 9 years ago

We’ve delegated the larger part of our days on earth to consuming what someone else has created. [...] I told him my favorite example of those who “figure it out” are rappers who are criticized for being talentless but still rake in millions. Who cares if they’re talentless (by someone’s standards)? At least they are still CREATING something! Lil Wayne [...] has released 1,747 songs

So the idea is make lots of stuff, but avoid consuming all of the stuff that other people create...though should everyone follow this ideology it would be infeasible to make content prolifically because it relies on consumption to drive the next creation.

Is there a middle ground, like practice your creativity prolifically but only publish your best so that the world is inspiring rather than a mire of half thought-out, tepid excrement? Maybe all of this shit clogging up the TV and internet is what leaves the masses drooling on themselves.

kqr2• 9 years ago

I think you'll find that the most successful authors will tell you that key to their success was reading a lot written by other people.

closeparen• 9 years ago

One of my favorite lessons from Ira Glass's lecture circuit: ideas come from other ideas. The first step to producing high quality content is surrounding yourself with high quality content.

roceasta• 9 years ago

Exactly. Writers must read 1000s of books, singers must listen to 1000s of songs, and so on. Even for those who don't create additional content, it's impossible to 'consume' culture without creative engagement. Nobody can pour content into his head:

http://www.jfallen.org/wordpress/2015/04/12/the-bucket-or-th...

xaedes3• 9 years ago

"though should everyone follow this ideology"

I dont think everybody should follow ONE and the same ideology at all. Diversity is key

ehnto• 9 years ago

I don't believe this advice is aimed at everyone. There will always be consumers and creators will also inevitably consume. I think the advice is to simply be aware of it and make the decision to consume or create consciously. Find a balance that makes sense to you and aligns with your goals.

I think even great minds have fallen prey to the dopamine treadmills of modern media consumption. The article serves as a nice reminder that we should hop off that treadmill when pertient, for some people, that is forever. For others, maybe just when there is a deadline due.

emerged3• 9 years ago

There's no doubt that incredible amounts of time are "wasted" by all of our quick dopamine hit apps and sites. These are the new opiate of the masses.

It seems to be something we are all aware of, and we talk of unplugging. Some do, here and there. It's a constant struggle. The new cigarette / snack food. Just as hard to quit - but we should all at least try.

eksemplar3• 9 years ago

It'll be interesting to see if these new dopamine fads play out differently.

My government puts a lot of effort (money) into making people quit smoking because smokers are extremely expensive on public healthcare. Our goals are 4% by 2025, but even in countries with less of a business case for health, there are still huge campaigns against smoking.

Facebook, Reddit, candy crush, instagram and so on aren't really seen as health risks. They mostly occupy the masses, and no one wants to put money into stopping that. At least not yet.

emerged3• 9 years ago

Yeah, at least not nearly with the same momentum as smoking etc. But i do think the risks and costs of these new addictions are in the collective conciousness. So it's just a matter of time until a rebellion of mass scale IMO.

Simon_says3• 9 years ago

Which government is yours? Everything I've read is that smokers have lower total healthcare costs since they die earlier and tend to have sudden deaths instead of lingering around using healthcare services.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/22/alcohol-...

jopsen• 9 years ago

Haven't most people always been wasting most of their time?

Before it was TV, Radio, gossip magazines, books, you name it.

Do we know?

dredmorbius2• 9 years ago

The distractions weren't driven by vast, A/B-tested, AI-assisted, institutional machines with the resources of major nation-states.

In 1817, your primary distractions would mostly have involved hauling: bringing water, food, wood, and materials into a home, and hauling the waste products out. The metaphor was buckets and baskets, not pipes.

There might have been some home-craft production, or farming. But those were not idle pursuits.

Entertainment was something done rather than consumed: people told stories or read to one another (if they could), or played music (or dice or cards -- considered vices).

And the primary information conduit was a weekly sermon or service.

emerged3• 9 years ago

Good question - some tools/tech have increased productivity, and others have optimized their ability to drain productivity (in exchange for monetized attention). Sad bit is, I'd be hesitant to trust any scientific studies which tried to weigh their relative proportions (for a variety of reasons).

ahartman00• 9 years ago

dredmorbius makes a good point, but if you change always to recently, and time to free time, i think you are right.

Brave New World was published in 1932 after all. "As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Comparisons_wi...

"In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action."

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/

relevant: "The pace of modern life" https://xkcd.com/1227/

petra• 9 years ago

Sure, a lot of time is wasted by quick dopamine hits.

But let's be realistic, for most people who hold a job, and family or relationships, do they have the energy to start something that makes meaningful money in their spare time ?

And in a similar fashion she underestimates the difficulty and determination needed for creating a real business.

EDIT: Reading it again, this article just seems like bragging:" i'm and entrepreneur an you're not, because you're all so lazy".

whipoodle• 9 years ago

If you enjoy creating things, that's great. But I am not quite convinced of the inherent good of creating, being a "maker", etc. This can often be quite a consumptive activity, actually, depending on what you make.

Edit: on further thought, I feel I should stress that the world belongs to us all.

syphilis2• 9 years ago

"We are strangers in this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to escape by self-murder; for we are the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our escape. In this life, there are three kinds of men, just as there are three sorts of people who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest class is made up of those who come to buy and sell, the next above them are those who compete. Best of all, however, are those who come simply to look on. The greatest purification of all is, therefore, disinterested science, and it is the man who devotes himself to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the 'wheel of birth.'" Burnet on the Pythagorean ethic, Early Greek Philosophy

The author of the article is very engrossed in modern values. Don't let her adamance that creators control the world frighten you into churning away at something like knitting block chain encoded socks, or worse writing horror novels. The world is beyond the control of any creator anyway, even Mark Zuckerberg if you'll believe me. I think a lot of people find, after years of creating or struggling to create, it's best (or just good) to consume and contemplate without regret.

AstralStorm2• 9 years ago

The latter is a path to doom if followed by a civilisation though. Consumption and contemplation do not bring change and that which does not adapt will perish sooner or later.

Singletoned• 9 years ago

That which DOES adapt will also perish sooner or later.

godot• 9 years ago

While I agree with the overall point of the author, one thing not pointed out is that she is comparing the greats of the past (or current) to the average person. These people are/were great, not the least because they spent that much time at their work that they produce. To put it another way, there were many more (vast majority even?) people from the past, before technology, who spent their time just as unproductively as the average person nowadays. They may not be consuming content on the internet, but they could just be chatting in person, watching the sceneries, or more likely just doing labor work. Preparing food or doing laundry could be a whole day of work when you don't have technology.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't wonder where all the time went for the modern individual compared to the times before technology. Do spend time more productively and create stuff, which is good.

blizkreeg• 9 years ago

Create more, but responsibly.

dredmorbius2• 9 years ago

History demonstrates otherwise.

The world belongs to those who can extract, or create rent-extracting systems and networks.

"Creators" probably the least well-served of any labour cateogory, relative to their contribution.

Straight-up wage labour is also under-served, and often below the point of sustenance, but it's the contribution ratio I'm looking at.

In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark (UC Davis) lists the inventors responsible for the first Industrial Revolution. Of eight or so inventors, 3-4 died in poverty, another 3-4 survived only on other activities, or through legislative compensation. Only one or two actually profited by the work they're known for.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/farewell-to-alms-a-brief-econo...

Vaclav Smil points out that the diesel engine and gas turbine are the two prime movers most responsible for all modern power production (either motive or electrical). Otto Diesel committed suicide after financial ruin. Parsons, inventor of the gas turbine, did relatively well, but failed to be recognised for the vast bulk of benefit for his work, which was posthumous.

Creativity is fun, it's intellectually rewarding. Don't think for a moment that market economies offer remunerative compensation with anything resembling consistency, rationality, or proportionality.

mannanali413• 9 years ago

I think that any individual, who does some work creating/building a product/feature goes will identify themselves with the ideas presented in this article. However, the world actually belongs those who can get others to create and build. These usually are the people who have access to capital and use it to generate more capital.

kleer001• 9 years ago

Well, then that's a real shame then for people without creative impulses and or skills.

ak392• 9 years ago

This is spot on. I share this worldview too.

Here are my thoughts I try to live by:

1. Know the type of person you are:

We are all creatives and contributors at our core. We all measure our self-worth by how much we give instead of how much we take. This is part of our natural human wiring - to want to belong deservingly to a village of individuals who pull their own weight. So, if you are not creating in your natural sphere of strengths, or you don't feel you're contributing to feel worthy of your own esteem you need to sit down and think. Fix this immediately.

2. Be prolific:

To be good at whatever you're creating or contributing, you have to be prolific. Genuine quality comes only through quantity. A shit ton of it. Keep hacking, keep swimming, keep sucking.

3. Judge progress, not outcomes:

Judge your own evolution. Have I done better than yesterday? Do I suck less than last year? Yeah? You are golden. The dangers of comparing your own outcomes with someone else's is that you betray and cheapen your own timeline, your own history, your hard struggles and the victories over your own debilitating handicaps. Appreciating your history as the backdrop of every milestone is the essence of healthy self-esteem.

Just keep swimming.

candiodari2• 9 years ago

Can you give a few examples, other than apps, that one could make and reasonably sell ?

Maybe it's just me but I don't see any real opportunity in this.

yetihehe2• 9 years ago

- Grow vegetables - Make tools - Make cakes - Build houses - Build machines - Create gardens

There are many possibilities, you could earn reasonable money from any of above examples starting from small business and not needing to learn that much before you start.

ak392• 9 years ago

If you're looking for business opportunities, look for "dirty" jobs. They are everywhere and in every field. Find them, do them, do them well enough to know why no one wants to do them. And only then get creative about doing these jobs without getting dirty.

A "dirty" job is anything that needs to be done but is considered beneath many.

codeisawesome• 9 years ago

How about a slight shift in thinking? "Self-fulfilment belongs to those who create"... and perhaps try to think "the world belongs to everyone" instead.

Agree with the overall intention of the post though.

happy-go-lucky• 9 years ago

I think the author is wondering why everyone is not a creator or making an effort at becoming one. IMO the world is never meant to be a place exclusively for creators.

And the smaller part creating for someone else to make money to continue to consumer what someone else is creating.

So, unbeknownst to yourself, you’re saying the world belongs to someone else, not the creators, and this contradicts with the title of your blog post. Moreover, on one’s own, one cannot create all things that one wants or needs to consume. It would be supernatural. Since time immemorial, people have been creating things for others to consume and consuming what others have been creating. The world is fueled by mutual reliance.

Why is this an issue?

It’s not unusual for people in marketing to create an issue out of nowhere :)

The World Belongs to Those Who Create

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