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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
> 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.