Creation vs. consumption

posted by Jeff | Sunday, July 29, 2012, 9:30 AM | comments: 0

When someone asks me in a job interview about what motivates me, what I really like to do, the most fundamental underpinning of what gets me up in the morning is the act of creation. I like to make stuff, whether it's tangible or not. It can be anything from media, to software, to a team of teenage girls who can play volleyball together. There's something about the act of having nothing and ending up with something.

I find it difficult to relate to people who don't share this view. A lot of people do a job (that may or may not involve creating anything), and just want to consume beyond that. I can't relate to being passive all of the time, watching hours of TV, eating and not doing much else.

That said, I've noticed that my biggest issue is that I don't take the time to do much in the way of consumption either. I get a lot of joy from losing myself in a movie, for example, but I don't do it very often. My brain has trained me to think that passively consuming things is wasteful, and that I should be doing something at all times. When I'm not, I end up feeling bad, which is kind of messed up. I think it's rooted in the idea that I don't really follow through on a lot of the things that I say I want to do, or things that I start. That's partly because I want to do a lot of very big things, I suppose, as smaller things I generally crank through and get done.

So while I pride myself on being a creator of things, I need to strike a better balance with being a consumer of things (other than fried food).


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