[KeytarHero]

Yeah, creativity is hard. As Ira Glass put it:

> All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.

(full quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to...)

I really wish "just make something" was that simple, but for people who are already full of self-doubt, it might not make things any better, especially for people with high standards. There are ways to get around this (see the rest of the Ira Glass quote), but it's not the panacea the article makes it out to be.

[icc97]

I've run across this quote a few times recently and like it a lot. But there's always the nagging doubt / imposter syndrome telling that you don't really have taste either.

Like the people who can taste good food, can't necessarily cook good food.

Perhaps it's just enough that you care about something and want to get good at it.

I liked Sal Khan's TED lecture [0] about the possibility of us all having the capacity to be cancer researchers in the same vein that people 200 years ago assumed that only the best would be able to read.

  [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MTRxRO5SRA

[cousin_it]

I think developing taste is actually the hardest part. For example, most aspiring musicians start out enamored with a particular style because it impressed them in their early life. It takes years to make sense of things and find your unique personal concept of "good music". Many don't even reach the realization that it's a worthwhile goal. Similar with visual art, etc.

[bduerst]

Developing the skill to evaluate something is different from developing the skill to produce it.

If they were the same, then all the front-end developers and UX experts would both work the same job. Some people can, and it's usually those who have developed skills for both.

Self-awareness of your skill level is the first step to developing it.