I've been musing over this for about a decade now, and I have finally 
come up with a word which succinctly describes the problem:

Originality.

Apparently I am physiologically incapable of coming up with original 
ideas. Take music, for example. I have almost two decades of recordings 
I've made of myself performing various pieces of music that other people 
have written. But the number of original compositions that I've come up 
with myself can be counted on one hand.

I can take an existing piece of music and make it sound good. I can tell 
you why it sounds good. But sitting looking at a blank piece of score, I 
can only sit there and think "now, what would sound good?"

The same seems to hold for any other field of endeavour you can think 
of. I can look at a piece of work that somebody /else/ has produced and 
tell you why it's good. But I can't think of anything good myself. I 
simply lack any shred of originality. I can only copy other people's 
great works.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I've been musing over this for about a decade now, and I have finally 
> come up with a word which succinctly describes the problem:

  Mid-life crisis.

  (Although that's two words, but anyways.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 18/07/2011 12:14 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> I've been musing over this for about a decade now, and I have finally
>> come up with a word which succinctly describes the problem:
>
>    Mid-life crisis.

Nah. This has been bugging be since *long* before I was old enough to 
call this "mid-life". :-P

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> I've been musing over this for about a decade now, and I have finally
> come up with a word which succinctly describes the problem:
>
> Originality.
>
> Apparently I am physiologically incapable of coming up with original
> ideas. Take music, for example. I have almost two decades of recordings
> I've made of myself performing various pieces of music that other people
> have written. But the number of original compositions that I've come up
> with myself can be counted on one hand.
>
> I can take an existing piece of music and make it sound good. I can tell
> you why it sounds good. But sitting looking at a blank piece of score, I
> can only sit there and think "now, what would sound good?"
>
> The same seems to hold for any other field of endeavour you can think
> of. I can look at a piece of work that somebody /else/ has produced and
> tell you why it's good. But I can't think of anything good myself. I
> simply lack any shred of originality. I can only copy other people's
> great works.

Creativity is not handed out evenly among the population.  Not all great 
musicians are made to ge great composers (and vice-versa), not all 
actors are made to be great playwrights, etc...

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On 18/07/2011 02:06 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:

> Creativity is not handed out evenly among the population. Not all great
> musicians are made to ge great composers (and vice-versa), not all
> actors are made to be great playwrights, etc...

It takes a special kind of genius to create a truly /great/ work. But 
I'd settle for being able to create merely "average" works, really.

Apparently writing a short musical composition is considered so easy 
that it's an exam requirement for certain musical qualifications...

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I've been musing over this for about a decade now, and I have finally
> come up with a word which succinctly describes the problem:
>
> Originality.
>
> Apparently I am physiologically incapable of coming up with original
> ideas. Take music, for example. I have almost two decades of recordings
> I've made of myself performing various pieces of music that other people
> have written. But the number of original compositions that I've come up
> with myself can be counted on one hand.
>
> I can take an existing piece of music and make it sound good. I can tell
> you why it sounds good. But sitting looking at a blank piece of score, I
> can only sit there and think "now, what would sound good?"
>
> The same seems to hold for any other field of endeavour you can think
> of. I can look at a piece of work that somebody /else/ has produced and
> tell you why it's good. But I can't think of anything good myself. I
> simply lack any shred of originality. I can only copy other people's
> great works.


This is nothing more that a flying guess, but perhaps you share a problem that



of the word processor has probably prevented a large percentage of a deciduous
forest from going into a landfill by way of my waste basket.)   I owe any small
successes that I may have had to one unusually gifted instructor who beat me
over the head with one particularly useful adage until I had fully internalized


Writing bad stuff turns out to be amazingly useful, especially if one has some
facility for understanding what makes it bad stuff and can go on to fix it.  As
obvious as it sounds, it is absolutely true that writing anything is of

nothing.

So... (he said, pretending to be in a position to give advice) Hop to it! You
know how it begins: ten horizontal lines, two clefs, one key signature and then
you start making the little dots. Do NOT wait until you think you've got the


As for not being capable of creativity... stuff and nonsense.  If that language

Seriously, I know people who are fundamentally incapable of creativity and

disinterest that renders such individuals intellectually inert.

Obligatory Monty Python reference:
http://www.wavsource.com/snds_2011-07-14_1339138915432900/tv/mpfc/pig-ignorance.wav


In comes down to one simple disjunction: Either you will write music or you


Best Regards,
Mike C.

P.S.
Darn you... Darn you to heck!  Now that you gone and gotten me to post this

I?
(Thanks.)

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On 18/07/2011 03:11 PM, Mike the Elder wrote:

> P.S.
> Darn you... Darn you to heck!  Now that you gone and gotten me to post this

> I?
> (Thanks.)

0wn3d.

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On 7/18/2011 3:27 AM, Invisible wrote:
> Apparently I am physiologically incapable of coming up with original
> ideas.

Do you dream of new things? I mean, where you go to sleep and have 
visions, that sort of dreaming. Creativity is the process of assembling 
known ideas and principles to create new forms. Not all of your 
sentences are complete rewrites of some other person's thoughts, are 
they? I doubt it. You assemble bits and pieces of old things to create 
new things.

Creativity has its roots in the subconscious, and free association is 
one way to tap it. Not saying I'm always successful, but that's why I 
cycle through different hobbies :)

Whether or not what you create is widely considered 
aesthetically-pleasing is all a matter of perspective. Look at the Bower 
bird. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird) He creates these 
fantastic arrangements (that Wikipedia article doesn't do them justice, 
try watching the PBS special), and as the species evolves, their bowers 
become more and more magnificent. Even so, many of the bowers they make 
simply aren't pleasing to the human eye, but these birds are undoubtedly 
going through a creative process.

Sometimes all you have to do is start doing /something./ Who cares if 
nobody else likes it? What's important is that *you* enjoy doing it.

~Sam

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 18/07/2011 02:06 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
>
> > Creativity is not handed out evenly among the population. Not all great
> > musicians are made to ge great composers (and vice-versa), not all
> > actors are made to be great playwrights, etc...
>
> It takes a special kind of genius to create a truly /great/ work. But
> I'd settle for being able to create merely "average" works, really.
>
> Apparently writing a short musical composition is considered so easy
> that it's an exam requirement for certain musical qualifications...

I too feel bad for just knowing a bit of piano playing -- let alone musical
composition or at least improvisation.  I once felt like I one day would be able
to handle all of Beethoven's sonatas... Now  I'm glad that I can play at least
Moonlight's first movement. :p

Aging makes us humble.  In any case, music playing and music composition
ironically require different skill sets: in one you should keep as close to the
written score as possible, in the other you should embellish and improve on the
few notes in the sketch as possible.

At the very least, as of late I've been finding myself more and more drawn to
poetry.  This was quite unexpected to be honest:  I was never fond of the genre
but has found its vivid wordplaying in a metric structure to be surprisingly
easy and enjoyful for my programmatic mind. Thus, I've been reading and writing
quite a lot of it.  Needless to say, I mostly despise
unrhymed poetry as much as atonal music.

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On 21/07/2011 08:59 PM, stbenge wrote:
> On 7/18/2011 3:27 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> Apparently I am physiologically incapable of coming up with original
>> ideas.
>
> Do you dream of new things?

Dreaming is damned scary. I'm always very glad that I don't dream very 
often. Because when I *do* dream, I always seem to dream about really, 
really disturbing stuff.

> Not all of your
> sentences are complete rewrites of some other person's thoughts, are
> they? I doubt it. You assemble bits and pieces of old things to create
> new things.

Sure. But /most/ people can assemble a sentence. ;-)

> Whether or not what you create is widely considered
> aesthetically-pleasing is all a matter of perspective.
>
> Sometimes all you have to do is start doing /something./ Who cares if
> nobody else likes it? What's important is that *you* enjoy doing it.

Well, there is that. It's just that almost everything I create leaves me 
feeling disappointed.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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