One of the reasons I started to write this blog is to get my mindset shifted from being a consumer to being a creator. For me, it is hard to share information I've learned because I feel that if I know it must be common knowledge. That, however, isn't a good rationale not to share for two reasons. One, my content might be read by someone that doesn't know it. Two, in life, rarely do we need to be told, but often we need to be reminded.
The target audience for this blog has been software developers, which in the most part is comprised of people that do creation for a living. We take ideas from our mind and craft it into working software. We use patterns, frameworks, languages and text as the building materials in shaping tools that people can use. However, I for one was in the mindset of using my time off to consume. I watched entertainment that others had created. I took training, read books and played games that I could consume.
Creation is a much harder task and even at that, it requires that you consume information, but it's your mind weaving together your own connections that make your creation. It's taking disparate ideas that you've learned and then connecting the key points where they fit together that is exciting.
Now, I personally find blogging much easier for me to do as a creative outlet than I would by starting or even contributing to a software project. For me stringing together words into an idea is a strength (I'm definitely not the best at it, but I've seen worse). That doesn't mean that writing is the only way to be a creator. Some of you might be much more comfortable coding, singing, carving, building or [Fill in the blanking]. It's not the medium that's important it's the direction that matters. Creating is sharing yourself with the world.
Consuming will take from the world and leave you perhaps a little bit better, but if you don't utilize that consumed information, you are basically stealing from the world. You (yes YOU!) can contribute to the improvement of the whole world by creating. If you strictly consume, you make a good customer, but you are wasting the unique talents and insights that you have been given.
If you are like me you might think that what you have to contribute will never be the best, so why even bother. First of all, you don't know what your limits are until you actually test them and secondly you don't need to be the best to be a contributor.
For example, if you love Star Wars and you know all of the lines and characters, you know all of the books even. You've consumed Star Wars to the point that you are a walking Wookieepedia. That's great, what have you given back to the world of Star Wars fans? You could actually be an editor for Wookieepedia, or have a fan site or contribute to a Fan club (I'm not talking about trolling a message board either). The point here is that to be a creator it doesn't need to be for some amazing noble purpose or for some game-changing technology. It just needs to be something that you are capable of contributing to.
So let me challenge you to try to do something to be a creator. Make/write/code/create something this week and every week. If you are wondering about when you have time for that, it's easy, just replace some of the time you are normally consuming with time spent creating.
No comments:
Post a Comment