19 Comments

I am making $3.15 an hour working from home. I never imagined that it was honest to goodness yet my closest companion is earning $39.55 a month by working on a laptop, that was truly astounding for me, she prescribed for me to attempt it simply. You too could be making this much from the comfort of your home, or while flying to London in your Learjet, or summering in the Caribbean. Boy am I gad I took notice of those spam comments on Substack! I would never have discovered the astounding financial opportunities I have without any effort, or even having to think much, or even write good. You too can learn the secrets of unlimited financial, social, political, and physical success just by clicking on the subscribe button above.

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😂 Nice send-up, Winston. Nice indeed.

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Feb 5, 2023Edited
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So very happy for you Richard!

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One of those spammers responded to my comment with the same comment 😂

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Silly bot🙄

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Thank you Winston again!!!

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Thanks Winston,

Trained as a Landscape Architect, the 'creative process' goes along the same trajectory:

Inspiration - vision

Investigation - research

Contemplation - sketching

Implementation - presentation

Deconstruction - reVisions

Refinement - inspiration

And so on and on until client Acceptance.

Never completely satisfied is the curse of a Creative:-)

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Oh, I left out

Being in The Zone -

when you've worked pulled 2 all nighters in a row and the brain is primed for either delusions or the creative Moment.

The Creative Moment.

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Good post. I think Steve Jobs really nails it. The creative process can be formalized in two steps --

(1) Regrouping -- "moving the brackets" in the equation to look at the same old data in a new light.

(2) Substitution -- plugging in new equivalent expressions.

Knowing exactly *how* to regroup or *what* to substitute is the tricky part. This is why AI will never be truly creative.

https://fatrabbitiron.substack.com/p/with-for-creativity

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I'm volunteering (yes, working for free) for a project that I thought required, or at least would benefit from my creativity and especially my editorial skills (honed over the course of many years by working for free for my insufferably-bad-novelist father), and I was recently told that my creativity and editorial skills are superfluous and not appreciated. They want me to just copy and paste stuff into a spreadsheet. For some reason this reminds me of an old Yiddish joke: A poor Jewish man wants to enter the synagogue on Yom Kippur to pray, but he can't afford the ticket price. So he tells a white lie to the doorman: He needs to bring an urgent message to a cousin who's inside. The doorman relents, and says, "Okay. Go on inside. But don't let me catch you praying!"

I know. It's a bad analogy. It's close enough for a laugh, though, right? "Just don't use your editorial skills or your creativity on this project, whatever you do."

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TrutthBird,

Same as corporate design.

My first job I was handed a list of 20 plants to choose from. A strange concept.

Writers have my respect - the ability to tell a story from millions of words choices. Where does one begin? End?

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1) Intelligibility.

2) Economy of expression.

3) Poetic expression whenever possible, rather than dull, commonplace, mundane verbiage.

4) Adherence to pre-postmodern English usage: Think of W. Somerset Maugham, the delightful, complex elegance of his writing! How amazingly degraded our usage of English has become in only a few short decades!

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Many readers want to be writers. I've dabbled a bit in writing fiction. I've even considered posting a short piece or two on my SS but can't find the courage. I know good writing from bad, and my own I judge to be at best mediocre, which is why I keep it to myself. Some of my stuff goes back quite a few years, and when I re-read it I'm surprised because nearly always I find myself thinking it's actually pretty good, compositionally. But not creatively. Perhaps what a left-brained writer needs is a right-brained collaborator or co-writer.

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musicians - the most consummate of all thieves - often speak of a three -stage process: imitation, emulation and origination.

first you steal the other guy's riffs. then you figure out what he would have done in various situations. it all comes together when you combine the riffs and the technique you learned in stealing those riffs while listening to what the music calls for. songs are like children. they tell you what they need. you just have to listen. i suspect that is true in other artistic fields as well.

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No more true than film scoring! 99% imitation & emulation.

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lol 2 chords is all you need. or just white noise if it's an action movie

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Creativity is analogous to a natural sense of rhythm.

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For me adrift amidst those “Visions Of Johanna” I feel the bones of electricity howling. I work for free but it doesn’t change a thing. As Dylan so perfectly writes - “money never changed a thing”.

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"But what we can do is attend in a way that doesn’t inhibit creativity from emerging."

I think this is most people's problem. We are all creative, it's just a few who are much more creative than others. In the study of magic it is said creativity can very much be cultivated, and the formula is imagination, intention, and will. Creativity is work, and most people aren't willing to do the work, or they have been and are convinced they are not creative.

Lot's to meditate on in this piece.

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