Thanks for the links, but just a note. The thesis of being alone is not enough to be creative in this day and age. As advice, it worked quite well before the advent of modern technology, so the oft-quoted works on solitude from Nietzsche, Jung, etc. just don’t mention a state of being that was quite commonplace at the time, but has practically disappeared: the long hours of contemplation, which for the modern philosopher Byung-Chul Han are the crucial component of creativity; it can only express itself when we’re steeped in boredom and non-activity for a long enough time. We have completely eliminated it in the past 100 years with radio, TV and now by staring at our screens all day, to work, and to “relax.” We do not contemplate the world anymore, we do not let ourselves be spontaneously creative.

I recommend Byung-Chul Han’s books The Burnout Society and Vita contemplativa: In praise of inactivity for a short but deep dive into this aspect we’re rapidly losing.

(I have just finished reading both books and I quite enjoyed the main thesis, though thick with philosophical discourse at times. Thankfully, they are quite short, not even reaching 100 pages so they don’t overstay their welcome)

Thanks for the recommendations and I agree completely.

There's some hope, we can get better at this even in small ways by carving out pockets of time away from phones and notifications and other external distractions and inputs.

Unfortunately a lot of this kind of writing teeter-totters between being a massive coping strategy or a circlejerk. Using the lives of exceptional people as a blueprint for the everyday person is ridiculous. I’m reminded of people following professional bodybuilding schedules and meal plans to lose a bit of weight, getting caught up in nonsense like “cheat meals” and “cheat days.” Likewise, if you don’t have any exceptional abilities such that your creativity will advance a field forward, you may want to be reasonable with your expectations and outcomes of what you actually can apply your time and energy to.

At least read Gatto’s work in education because he knows what he’s talking about as an actual teacher who has put more students through schooling than anyone writing these articles. His work contradicts some of this because he studied very non-exceptional childhoods of exceptional people. He has a better answer to how to think for oneself as well.

To actually get to the bottom of things: I think most normal folks are concerned more about getting by and making decent money in “the age of AI” than they are about being brilliant whizkid prodigies coming up with original ideas. A lot of those end up being poor anyway. But the desire to live a quality life is a more universal thing. No amount of “mind training” will help here. Just steer clear of paths that AI can dominate (they’re expanding), and failing that, use it to your advantage as best as you can.

Right now working with one’s hands seems to be in vogue because it’s one of those things that people are unaware of is actually dominated by robotics in the industrial/manufacturing sectors, so the ignorance there can probably get people through some hard times. But eventually even that will be shown for what it is and we’ll have to find better ways to spend our time.

> To actually get to the bottom of things: I think most normal folks are concerned more about getting by and making decent money in “the age of AI” than they are about being brilliant whizkid prodigies coming up with original ideas. A lot of those end up being poor anyway. But the desire to live a quality life is a more universal thing. No amount of “mind training” will help here. Just steer clear of paths that AI can dominate (they’re expanding), and failing that, use it to your advantage as best as you can.

In my experience most people working on this are attempting variations on a handful of generic ideas. Most AI startups are fairly uninspired “XYZ but with AI chat” type things or ideas that have no staying power because Claude 7 will one-shot the whole product with a prompt. Succeeding here in the long run means doing something truly different and new and interesting and that’s what the linked articles are about.

>Right now working with one’s hands seems to be in vogue

Working with one's hands has been in vogue since the dawn of human history.

Not quite. Look at how some countries value/treasure things like soft hands and paler skin tones, and how it relates to social status. It’s not that simple.