[michaelochurch]

Perhaps I'm getting all external-locus-of-control here, but I actually think most people get it when it comes to creation being hard. I give them credit on that. I don't think there's actually an epidemic of people who fail to thrive because they struggle in the intermediate creative stages. I think people understand that it's a part of the process everyone has to go through. It's intellectually demanding, but if you can enjoy the small victories, you can get through it happily (and then will remember those times fondly.)

The problem is That Work Shit. No, I don't mean that people are averse to working hard. The contrary is true. Ever see a programmer blow up on his jackass-interrupter boss, because he wanted to keep working done rather than deal with an impromptu status ping? People like to work. They do. Leave them alone and most people will be productive. At least, most people whose efforts will be worth anything will be productive. Who cares if the bottom 20% use freedom and autonomy to slack off? They won't deliver much value no matter how hard you beat them.

Unfortunately, most of us are stuck in this corporate matrix where even cognitive 1-percenters have to sell themselves to middlemen called "managers" who take all the credit, and to take subordinate roles because a bunch of rent-seeking assholes have (in most settings) taken everything important or interesting for themselves. The result is a culture where there's no improvement and where motivation dies, usually around age 30. (People have kids, then decide that their creative existences are over and commence living vicariously through miniature creatures genetically similar to themselves, then find themselves chagrined when most of those turn out to be separate people with their own agendas.) We see this in the shitpile that is 95% of software engineering, where improvement never happens and horrible code gets written and dumbasses make all the decisions.

I don't think people get burned out in the intermediate stages because they're lazy or because they have a childish need for praise. I think they get to a point where they realize they're still not getting enough back to compensate for the obscene (artificially high, due to phony scarcities and corrupt) costs of living so they cut off and go back to their boring paid work.