Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by umberway 3434 days ago
This is a tricky topic because a free and creative person is mostly acting spontaneously so he cannot predict where his attention is going next. Go figure.
1 comments

I think many creative people can benefit from attempting to be more intentional and purposeful in how they move towards new ideas, learning, and inspiration.
Yes, the ability to direct one's creativity is valuable and a hallmark of freedom. But the direction, if it is to be fruitful, is determined by what one finds genuinely interesting. This is in turn an impersonal property of those new ideas.

The guy who is hooked on a video games is less intentional. He thinks he ought to be able to will himself into doing other stuff which he thinks he should be doing. He blames the game or phone or whatever for his failure. But what he really doing is avoiding certain other problems. When he is ready he'll face those unmentioned problems and maybe find a new direction.