The more we consume, the less we create.
Whilst having a coffee, I had an interesting conversation with a friend about creativity and consumption, where we were talking about the changes in entertainment. I am a firm believer in the "If you want them to be intelligent, read them fairy tales" approach. And as I have said before, it isn't in the fairy tale itself, it is in the need to use the imagination to create what doesn't exist. However today, there is too much "reality" in entertainment.
My friend was talking about rewatching a movie recently, The Rock, with Nicholas Cage and how he remembered it being better than it was, even though he knew it wasn't a great movie. And I think that if we were to rewatch many of the movies of the past it would be much the same, that there are too many pieces that we are unable to suspend our disbelief for. And after talking for a bit he realised that this is true, that these days, he expects a movie to be realistic.
Just imagine that women used to faint at horror movies in the 1930s, despite them being unrealistic. This is because they were able to close the gaps of their disbelief using their imagination with such force, they were able to feel the reality. Nowadays, with all the graphics, all the sound effects, all the polish, there is no need for the viewer to create anything. Instead, rather than closing the gaps to make it more realistic, they are looking for any flaws to break the realism.
I believe that we are generally becoming far less creative as a species, because we have so much content filling our awareness and that content is so full, it doesn't require us to think at all. All the sights, sounds and story are there, leaving no gaps for us to fill. And when there are no gaps, we needn't imagine, we needn't build an internal mind's eye world, nor do we need to consider any answers.
All the answers are provided.
And it isn't only in entertainment that this happens, but in pretty much all aspects of life. When we see an actor that we recognise but can't remember the name or where from, rather than thinking, we turn to a database search. When we don't know the answer to anything, rather than trying to discover a solution for ourselves, we search again to find an already created answer. No need to problem-solve, no need to recall, no need to create anything for ourselves.
Creativity needs to answer a question of some kind, but if the answer is supplied before we do our own work, take our own journey, we aren't the ones creating the solution. We are just repeaters of what already exists. And I would posit that a lot of people today do very little creative work themselves and are instead just parroting what they have consumed elsewhere. A lot of people are losing their ability to be interesting or funny for instance, without using some reference to something else they have consumed; A meme, a quote, a line from a movie. Their personality is not theirs, but a kind of "auto-response" based on a prompt.
A plagiarised persona.
And many people these days aren't able to create anything new, anything thoughtful, but rather, they talk about the facts and situations they have experienced, without any more added to it. A review of a movie, a reiteration of an article, the mention of some situation they experienced on social media.
It is dilution of content, rather than development of content.
I suspect that most people won't really understand what I mean by that, and most will not do the work to understand. But, that is the condition of culture today, where understanding doesn't actually matter, because it isn't required. Why understand when answers are provided? Why learn a skill when a machine can do the work instead? Why create, when there is no need?
And it is the last point that is salient, because most people feel they no longer have the need to create, because everything they need is conveniently provided for them. They don't want to learn, when a machine can do it better, faster, cheaper. They don't want to innovate, when there are already answers good enough available.
We are no longer curious enough to ask the question.
Is there another way?
We are looking for the easiest answer, not the best solution. We don't want to put in the effort, take the risks, try to do something that might fail. We don't want to use our brain power to think, when the answers are there at our fingertips. It is like using the answers at the back of a math book to complete homework - much faster, far easier, but we will fail the exam because having the answer, doesn't mean we understand the question.
And understanding the questions, understanding the problems, is what gives us the need to find a solution. Because if we don't understand the problem, then we can remain ignorant and despite being affected, not even realise there is a problem at all. And when we are ignorant, we needn't create, because there is no trigger to become creative. And instead, rather than fill our awareness up with problems we don't understand, we fill it up with content that gives us all the answers.
I suspect that people barely think these days.
Really take note of your experience over the next few days and consider how much you truly create in your imagination and how much is just the dull buzz coming from passive consumption. Sit in front of movie or a series and take note. Go for a walk in nature and take note. Sit in a room in silence and take note.
Listen to your thoughts.
We can fill ourselves up with full content, or we can fill our lives with thoughtful experience. They are not the same thing. To be creative we need the mental space to create, but if we are filling that space up with content that doesn't require us to think, doesn't question our world and drive our thoughts to build a solution, it is just filler. An insulation layer that stops us from touching our innate creativity.
To be creative, we need to first make room.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Be part of the Hive discussion.
- Comment on the topics of the article, and add your perspectives and experiences.
- Read and discuss with others who comment and build your personal network
- Engage well with me and others and put in effort
And you may be rewarded.
I agree with much of what you’re pointing to, especially the idea that constant consumption can crowd out the mental space needed for deeper thought.
Where I struggle a bit is with the implied opposition between creation and reference, or creation and tools. Creation has never happened in a vacuum. Almost everything we call creative is built on earlier work. Technology, including AI, is a clear example. It exists because of layers of human problem solving, iteration, and refinement. That process itself is creative.
Referencing something we have seen, read, or discussed does not automatically make the result uncreative. The difference is not whether something draws from existing material, but whether it simply reproduces it or actually transforms it through thought and synthesis.
I also find it interesting that this critique of social media is expressed on a social platform. That does not invalidate the point, but it suggests the medium itself is not the issue. The issue is how consciously we engage with it. Writing a reflective post here is not fundamentally different from any other format. The depth comes from the thinking behind it.
For me, creativity is not about rejecting tools or references, but about staying mentally awake while using them.
I think you have misunderstood the idea of space here. Creative space isn't devoid of all else, it isn't a vacuum. The equation of creativity is quite simple. Thought, word, action. Some kind of trigger, influence, creates a thought. Internal dialogue and external discussion the words. And then the action is the turning thought and word into some kind of reality.
The technology creation is definitely a creative process. The majority of users are far from being creative. they aren't solving problems, other than how to get an outcome without taking an experiential journey. If the journey is what matters, having an outcome devoid of journey is what?
You said it. Human. This is because of the journey component.
It isn't a social platform in the same sense as tiktok or facebook. There is no filtering here that I haven't chosen. No algorithm choosing what I see and what I don't. Just me.
It is in the fact that it is built upon my direct experience, not a filter of someone else's experience, which is a filter of someone else's experience and so on. As said, most content is a process of dilution, not addition. It is a race to the bottom.
When our minds are filled with content, there is space to be aware.
I still think The Rock is a great movie. It was a fantastic team up between Connery and Cage and it had some awesome lines! I've been reading a lot more than I used to, so my mind has been working a fair bit more than it used to.
Oh, my friend said the same! He just hadn't noticed the cheesiness (in the same way) originally.
I think reading gives enough "prompt" but not too much detail, forcing the mind to work to close the gaps. We as humans need to "build the picture" to create understanding, and that is why fairy tales are so great. We can imagine what isn't possible. Yet.
There is so much information everywhere that you can pick and choose to construct your own reality... Without any need to think. At least before you had to do some effort on Google, now you have AI summaries right there at the top.
Yep. It is getting easier and easier to be thoughtless. I was reading a story of some kid suing google because when she asked if Santa was real, it gave her an answer that it wasn't. People want answers they believe is right, not the right answer. But having said that, a key part of being a kid and maturing is being curious enough to think through the problem. How does Santa get around so fast? Instead, they just ask google and do no work themselves now.
"Out of the box" the phrase that was quite popular in corporate sector was a learning curve in my career. Knowing 'how' and 'why' and 'what' is important. Recently I met a guy in a temple, he is holding an engineering degree and mere around 27 years of age. the temple had certain function and he was part of the function, my curiosity to know asked him about the basis of the rituals and he was clueless he attended the rituals but was not aware of the reason/cause etc. ....I think it is all because of the education, where the kids are more into "rote learning" just to secure marks and never cared about deep understanding of the subject.....I find them in spiritual world too. Where people are chanting many mantras and sholakas but unaware of its meaning. .. the curiosity to learning is dying making creativity at loss.
And this is how I see most of the content online. People "create" without purpose, without understanding. All they are doing is trying to trigger an algorithm, by doing what everyone else is doing to trigger the algorithm. It is unaware ritual.
When I was very young, I used to watch horror stories and the village women would get very scared and forbid everyone from watching them. There were even some rural movies where real scenes from the family were shown and the village women would sit and cry a lot while watching them. But nowadays, there is so much use of graphics that the movies do not attract us that much or create feelings. However, creativity is needed because I have seen several movies where there is nothing new to say but rather copying or stealing others. Like I have seen some Hindi movies which are taken from Korean dramas or movies.
The best horror movies aren't the ones where everything is shown, it is one where very little is shown and the human brain is forced to imagine what it could be. It is far more frightening.
The desacralization of cinema and watching a movie being filmed is tremendously boring and disappointing for creative expression and has ceased to be a powerful source of inspiration and stimulus for our narratives.
I can't even watch many movies now, because they are so formulaic and full, that there is no meaning for me. Without thought required, life is pointless.
Constant content consumption is living the unexamined life.
I feel the audience at that time used to collaborate with the story, or at least watch with an open mind. Now it feels like we’re waiting to be impressed or disappointed, no in between.
Yes. Impressed by the realness. Disappointed by the story.
The part about instantly searching for answers stood out. I can’t remember the last time I tried to figure something out without my phone. Even small moments of curiosity are outsourced. We’re fast at finding answers, but slow at understanding questions. That feels like a quiet loss we don’t talk about enough.
People don't solve their own problems. They don't calculate small numbers in their head, nor do they use their memories. And people don't have good conversations anymore, they don't have to debate topics, they just surround themselves with what they already agree with.
Obviously when everything is given to us, we risk becoming mere consumers rather than creators. It is important for us to look for experiences that push our thinking and spark new ideas ;)
Cheers.