[collyw]

Actually I used to work as a rafting guide. Didn't earn a lot of money, but I had a lot of free time (in nature), and met a lot of people.

I notice that I had way more ideas then than I do now that I have settled into a 9-6 lifestyle. Sometimes that creativity starts coming back when I am on holiday for a while.

I think a "normal" office job / lifestyle is very stifling to creativity.

[stdbrouw]

Might be true, but it's easy to misjudge this: in your 9-6 you have lots of time to process any interesting ideas that come your way and then move on to the next thing, whereas while you were a rafting guide you probably chewed on the same ideas for longer and at odd times, making them appear more salient and profound.

[Disruptive_Dave]

I think many of us mistake "creativity" for "having great ideas appear in our minds". That's only a part of it, and "rafting guide" is a great environment for that part. The next part - filtering and workshopping those ideas - probably works best in a more traditional work environment with some constraints and teammates.

[thatusertwo]

I understand what you are saying, but in my traditional work environment (day job) I have to wait till I get home to do anything with an idea.

[collyw]

Why would that be misjudging it?

I would say that is part of the creative process.

[goodJobWalrus]

I counter your anecdotal with this anecdotal: Einstein and Bukowski were plenty creative while working in an office.

[peterwwillis]

Haha, okay, i'm gonna run with this.

Einstein's work was linked to the 'creative' ventures he had later on. From Wikipedia: "Much of his work at the patent office related to questions about transmission of electric signals and electrical-mechanical synchronization of time, two technical problems that show up conspicuously in the thought experiments that eventually led Einstein to his radical conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time." So really his office job was promoting his creative thoughts.

Bukowski (holy cow, what a diametrically opposed example!) is not so much a creative person as a person with PTSD. What's more, he wasn't writing when he was working for the post office initially, (and incidentally he was a letter carrier, meaning being outside). He left after 3 years, but returned a decade later after a divorce (and her subsequent death). Once he was back on the job, an old flame's death prompted more writing, and over the next decade he continued to write, though one has to wonder if it was because of his office gig or in spite of it. At the end of the decade he quit so he could write full-time, which to me says that he both disliked his job and also couldn't be completely creative while working there.

So while Einstein was directly inspired by the subject matter he reviewed at his job, Bukowski was driven by more personal motivations, along with perhaps a disgust with authority and human nature in general. Hard to say those are good anecdotals to defend the idea of general creative work being at all easy while working in a typical office job.

[fat0wl]

amen... i struggle with this a lot & though its cute to think "oh but i get to write code at work & be creative!!" all of the monstrous bureaucracy is very stifling, & my creativity is definitely in spite of my job.

is this "work is play" mentality something that the new generation of office workers actually believes? Given that 9-5 (or 6) is an outdated force-fed corporate notion, people seem to just be paid in a way that is almost directly correlated with how much annoyance they will face daily. The difficulty of the work i face at a corp is laughable.... after 6 months adapting, these jobs are mostly about keeping a straight face while beefing up one of the millions of coding projects that are basically child's play for anyone competent, yet need to be done to keep corp bureaucracy running or keep people clicking for some service.

Basically, my mind reels thinking about the great things i could achieve if i were not in this chair. If you are really "into" society (a yuppie, basically) then you might think that living in the big city, decorating your room just right & going out to see an indie film after work means you're inspired & hitting creative peaks (Brooklyn is filled with people living vicariously like this). The creative geniuses of previous generations would die of laughter, given that most of them truly devoted their lives to excellence in a given field in ways that were basically pathological.

There are rare counter-cases but I appreciate you (peterwwillis) pointing out that many of these examples are a complete crock. "Did you know ______ was a banker when he/she wrote his/her first symphony?" This can mean that ______ was either extremely well-adjusted and working in off hours, or was extremely irate and doing it in spite of his/her job. The anecdote alone has an implied simultaneity that is usually grossly distorted to serve as a success story to inspire continued enslavement of bright, delusional minds.

It's not that I believe EVERYTHING in the world is a corporate conspiracy, but basically you know whether or not you have a shit job that is destroying your creative mojo, and a few flaky anecdotes cant change that... time theft, maybe. :) But even that is tough, since many companies shun remote work ("oh no the developers might complete tasks efficiently & then enjoy a sandwich instead of working"). They wouldnt keep you strapped in the (mental) electroshock chair if they didn't want to come by & press the button.

[mmcwilliams]

Another example to throw in the pot is TS Eliot. He enjoyed his day job at a bank so much he rejected friends' attempts to get him to leave it for a more "creative" post.

[collyw]

Maybe they got outside lots as well.