My number one goal for 2026 was to focus on reigniting creativity in my life.
Creativity, like many other aspects of a persons life, seems to be more like a muscle than an inherent skill.
The main area of focus for my creativity was drawing. I had all of these ideas for products and concepts that lived in my mind alone, so I started to work on drawing from an industrial design perspective to get these ideas an prototypes on paper, and as I began to get better at realizing my ideas I began to write about them, and as they amassed I decided to start learning CAD software to be able to play with those ideas in an interactive way.
This eventually led to getting into 3D printing - mind you, this has all happened only over the course of 6 months. But now I am able to take an idea, put it to paper, build it using basic modeling, and print a physical version of that idea that I can hold in my hands all over the course of 1 to 2 days.
It’s been an extremely fulfilling journey and I am trying to extend it to other parts of my life, but one thing this article got right was that treating it like an experiment and setting goals and hypothesis and fulfilling them is the true joy of the creative process.
> Creativity, like many other aspects of a persons life, seems to be more like a muscle than an inherent skill.
Ehh, I'm not so sure. I've never been creative. I've always been good at creating, but it's more recreating, since I hardly ever have any original ideas. Whereas my creative friends seem to have a never ending spigot of ideas. But I do really appreciate the creativity of others. I guess out of wanting what I don't have.
I see what you’re saying but I also think that recreating is a way to exercise the creative muscle as well.
At least in my own experience I feel like I also hardly have any original ideas, but the more I learn about, mimic, and study the creations of others, the more i find ways to integrate those creations into my own. Unless you’re God, I’d argue that almost nothing is brought to creation in a vacuum, even your creative friends are probably creating based on drawn inspiration from countless sources that they studied or recreated themselves for who knows how long.
It’s work, but it’s fulfilling work, in my opinion, to mimic and recreate until one day you take a step back and realize that what you just created is uniquely yours, even if you can point to the many aspects of it that were borrowed from others.
Probably similar to many of you on HN, I've spent years and decades building stuff for a purpose. To "do" something, to hit a metric, to solve someone's problem. Trying to create with unlimited agency and for its own sake can be hard, and there's a lot to unlearn along the way.
I'm working my way through the Artist's Way right now - it's basically a 12 week "recovery" program for creativity. If you can make the time, and it does take some time and commitment, something like this is worth the investment.
Becoming a better, more open creator will touch all aspects of your life in surprising ways.
The iceberg image is a bit more in the right direction. Some early research on creativity did seem to come back with the result "if you're happy you'll be more creative", but https://www.zorana-ivcevic-pringle.com/ dug a bit deeper and suggested that its about leveraging all sorts of emotions.
So broadly (maybe I'm stretching) it's about dragging the unconscious into consciousness, whatever it may be saying.
It is a great feeling when you're in the flow and just jamming making something for fun, no tests, just build it/make it. This is in the context of a personal hobby but yeah.
I lost it for a couple months (probably anhedonia from drinking) but I'm starting to get it back.
As I read this article I lament that the childlike naïveté angle is the dominant one used to distill the spirit of creation in most written literature. There are other, more profound and perhaps more interesting ones, but the people who are deep into it and can speak credibly about it do not generally write on it. And to those that do, it does not appeal to package it a way that professes enlightenment of a theory of creation.
There’s an old concept, I can’t remember where it’s stems from, but it’s essentially:
A fulfilling life is the life of someone who voluntarily regains what it was that they lost in childhood, with the experience and insight that comes with time.
My number one goal for 2026 was to focus on reigniting creativity in my life.
Creativity, like many other aspects of a persons life, seems to be more like a muscle than an inherent skill.
The main area of focus for my creativity was drawing. I had all of these ideas for products and concepts that lived in my mind alone, so I started to work on drawing from an industrial design perspective to get these ideas an prototypes on paper, and as I began to get better at realizing my ideas I began to write about them, and as they amassed I decided to start learning CAD software to be able to play with those ideas in an interactive way.
This eventually led to getting into 3D printing - mind you, this has all happened only over the course of 6 months. But now I am able to take an idea, put it to paper, build it using basic modeling, and print a physical version of that idea that I can hold in my hands all over the course of 1 to 2 days.
It’s been an extremely fulfilling journey and I am trying to extend it to other parts of my life, but one thing this article got right was that treating it like an experiment and setting goals and hypothesis and fulfilling them is the true joy of the creative process.
Wonderful article!
> Creativity, like many other aspects of a persons life, seems to be more like a muscle than an inherent skill.
Ehh, I'm not so sure. I've never been creative. I've always been good at creating, but it's more recreating, since I hardly ever have any original ideas. Whereas my creative friends seem to have a never ending spigot of ideas. But I do really appreciate the creativity of others. I guess out of wanting what I don't have.
I see what you’re saying but I also think that recreating is a way to exercise the creative muscle as well.
At least in my own experience I feel like I also hardly have any original ideas, but the more I learn about, mimic, and study the creations of others, the more i find ways to integrate those creations into my own. Unless you’re God, I’d argue that almost nothing is brought to creation in a vacuum, even your creative friends are probably creating based on drawn inspiration from countless sources that they studied or recreated themselves for who knows how long.
It’s work, but it’s fulfilling work, in my opinion, to mimic and recreate until one day you take a step back and realize that what you just created is uniquely yours, even if you can point to the many aspects of it that were borrowed from others.
Probably similar to many of you on HN, I've spent years and decades building stuff for a purpose. To "do" something, to hit a metric, to solve someone's problem. Trying to create with unlimited agency and for its own sake can be hard, and there's a lot to unlearn along the way.
I'm working my way through the Artist's Way right now - it's basically a 12 week "recovery" program for creativity. If you can make the time, and it does take some time and commitment, something like this is worth the investment.
Becoming a better, more open creator will touch all aspects of your life in surprising ways.
> Creating should be done like:
That's some bold statements when a lot of great art came from a place that isn't joy and rainbows like author would want it to.
The iceberg image is a bit more in the right direction. Some early research on creativity did seem to come back with the result "if you're happy you'll be more creative", but https://www.zorana-ivcevic-pringle.com/ dug a bit deeper and suggested that its about leveraging all sorts of emotions.
So broadly (maybe I'm stretching) it's about dragging the unconscious into consciousness, whatever it may be saying.
It is a great feeling when you're in the flow and just jamming making something for fun, no tests, just build it/make it. This is in the context of a personal hobby but yeah.
I lost it for a couple months (probably anhedonia from drinking) but I'm starting to get it back.
As I read this article I lament that the childlike naïveté angle is the dominant one used to distill the spirit of creation in most written literature. There are other, more profound and perhaps more interesting ones, but the people who are deep into it and can speak credibly about it do not generally write on it. And to those that do, it does not appeal to package it a way that professes enlightenment of a theory of creation.
There’s an old concept, I can’t remember where it’s stems from, but it’s essentially:
A fulfilling life is the life of someone who voluntarily regains what it was that they lost in childhood, with the experience and insight that comes with time.
Easier said than done of course