1) Lots of the things I do in everyday life is just to consume: buying, watching, following, etc. These things either consume my money, or my time. These things make me feel good, but it does not generate real value. In order to get rich, I need to create things. I also start to realize that great people are great because they started to create things at a very early stage of their life (but not consuming things as they advocate, think about celebrities, entrepreneurs etc), so they are able to practice and perfect the value creating skills to the extreme.
2) I start to realize that the world is binary in nature : I create to sell, I buy to consume. I either at the buyer side, or at the seller side. And in this current society, there is a huge buyer side trap, the whole idea of consumerism and social media is to trap you inside the buyer side, so you keep buying, you keep consuming. I really need to break free from this trap.
This blog post was written before COVID-19, but the idea feels even fresher during this pandemic era
I don't agree with the overall take that the world is binary in that way at all..
You create to sell? No, I think a fundamental part, for example of art, is that it can be created for no reason whatsoever. To give a personal example, I really enjoy music production and playing piano.. but I do it only for myself and have fun doing so.. i don't even share it with anyone. Does that mean I am creating but not selling? And does that mean it is wrong and a waste of my time and I should stop doing it? No, I'm just creating for the sake of creating.
Another thing I don't understand, is your end goal in life to get rich? And do you equal being rich with being happy?
That's not my worldview at all. I mainly care about three things, curiosity, ethics and empathy. But definitely curiosity, being able to learn everyday is what makes me happy. But that doesn't fit into what your explaining, I don't have to create and sell anything with what I've learned because the act of learning already gives me happiness.
Maybe I'm the weird one but I truly find that a life with the sole goal of selling and accruing wealth seems boring.
Yeah, I agree with all of this. A lot of these types of posts and responses give me strange vibes, like people going through life trying to minmax everything and 'win' it as if it was a game.
It's an attitude I encounter frequently in tech circles, but it never stops feeling very weird to me.
You are not weird at all. I feel the same. Being rich is not a goal in itself. It is just a tool that you might use to solve your real goal. However if you don’t think deeply enough to realise what your real goal is then you might not realise that most goals can be achieved without becoming rich.
One can argue that you are buying an experience with your time and services in this framework rather than money. Kinda just shortcutting the wealth transfer bit. Not that I agree with the framework at all. (It narrows down to Objectivism really and makes no real sense in long-form concepts. In what part of this framework does a mother jumping in front of a bus to save her child does this fit?)
> Another thing I don't understand, is your end goal in life to get rich? And do you equal being rich with being happy?
Here's the deal: in a capitalist system, being rich may not equal being happy, but it certainly does equal being secure. The average worker is a lot less secure now that the days of "a job for life" are gone, and prices for housing, education, and health care have gone through the roof.
So your real goal is not to become rich but to become secure. Being rich doesn’t make you secure. You still have to worry about loosing your wealth, people trying to take advantage of you, raising your kids to be mentally happy/stable without just living off your wealth, not knowing if people are truly your friends etc. etc.
Okay, I get that. But in that case, wouldn't you say that the system itself is flawed/unjust and that you should rather put your efforts into changing that system?
Because if you focus on you making money to make your situation more secure, you're only solving the problem for yourself... which seems selfish and a bit unethical to me.
But I understand, we all have to live in a system and under circumstances we didn't choose and I guess we have to make the best of it.
>I realized that reading a book was really just like reading Reddit—both were consumptive activitives.
I disagree on this but I love and agree with the premise of the blog post. Comparing reddit to Moby Dick could not be further off. reddit (or any similar site) is a shill/bad actor/agitator/troll cesspool full of memes and clickbait.
It is important to learn to tell good shit from bad shit. Consume things produced by masters of their craft. Try not to settle for less, you have limited time here. Use this to create more.
The quality of consumption is different for sure, but I would argue that certain areas of reddit are of high value to my job, hobbies, etc. and Moby Dick is of little value those areas and quality of life in general. You could perhaps make arguments about historical value, context, or benefits to reading comprehension, but at the end of the day, reading anything is about only as good as the information you're taking in.
I would argue that reading Moby Dick is of value to your quality of life in general. Good fiction speaks to the human condition and can help us live our lives more fully.
And it makes things richer just in your daily life to have some familiarity with history and the literary canon instead of being deaf to its influence all around you.
I will respectfully disagree that it leads to a more 'full life' for everyone. People have different perspectives, values, etc. and that type of experience is purely subjective. I personally think it's of some value, but not as much as some other content.
While I do agree with your first point, I think it's a bit .. obvious. Of course you need to create value in order to be great (or get rich).
Regarding the article, it doesn't match my experience. All the prolific creators I know (about) are prolific consumers as well. Writers are known to read a lot. The girl the author saw sketching on the bus probably loves looking at and reading about art and does it often as well as actually creating art.
The other issue is the amount of creative effort you can spend. For example, software engineering is a very creative job and often at the end of the day I just have no energy left to create more.
I think those of us with leisure time or "bullshit" work struggle with these questions, but I find that the consumption/creation dichotomy is the wrong approach. Arguably almost everything is consumptive in some capacity, from creating art (which is indulgent and pleasurable) to unnecessary programs (they're all unnecessary) or any other passtime. I would further reduce the problem to one of stimulus and desire. Execution and completion of tasks is in itself cognitively satisfying, that's in part why smartphone games can be so addictive, you can "fake" the experience in rapid fashion. The mechanism behind the dopamine release etc doesn't care about the context behind it, that is an existential problem. We like the flow experience. That can be "deep" work, or not.
The question of meaning behind our actions is one divorced from this, and obviously not so easily determined as whether or not an action is creative. Some of the most effective altruistic actions are boring. I'm of the type that has short bouts of investigative interest in certain topics, and that wanes, so I can't count on merely my "mood" to finish projects. I had read anecdotally that authors in particular seem to derive satisfaction from having completed a work, and find that driving themselves to finish it can be torturous. I feel that way about my projects.
Personally, it's a good day if I've "executed" and completed a lot at work. There is no objective reason why this ought to be better than those days where I struggle to finish a single assignment, but that is human nature. You can satisfy such a creature with social validation and the feedback of completing tasks, until maybe you broach the problem of meaning. I wonder how many of us in the future will spend most of our time dwelling in virtual worlds where nothing is real. If we do, then meaning is cheap.
> And in this current society, there is a huge buyer side trap, the whole idea of consumerism and social media is to trap you inside the buyer side, so you keep buying, you keep consuming.
Aside from bankruptcy, buying and selling are actually completely balanced in a modern market economy. Even “saving” money is actually best considered as selling it. Earning money is obviously selling your time and bodily energy (those are the only finite things you have that are inputs into the system).
Borrowing is selling your future money to someone who wants to take on the risk.
Wow, really great article. I think there is nuance to consumption as others have pointed out. Regardless, this article really resonated with me and I appreciate you bringing it into my perspective.
I think I've been adjusting my life style to that idea for a couple months now. Being alone without friends for a few years makes working much more fun then I remember. Great article.
I don't understand this worldview. I guess appreciating art or music, or bullshitting with friends, or just enjoying some time off with a beer and a movie is lumped into the evils of consumption?
And by replacing all of this filthy filthy idleness with endless creation just to be creating, we... achieve enlightenment?
I guess it seems like this author is driving himself to write and write not so much because he loves it or loves books or anything, but more out of a drive to discipline himself into working constantly
You're looking at it way too absolutely. The author's point wasn't to say you need to spend every waking minute creating and all other time is wasted. They/we should consider the ratio of time spent creating(and doing -- not all doing is creating), vs passively consuming. In the modern technological world, there are more ways to fill your entire existence with consumption than ever before. The point was to be conscious of that and achieve a balance, because creation/doing tends to have more lasting personal value.
The title is literally "Consume less, create more," not "Consume none, create always".
This is a fantastic article. While I agree with the author for the most part, its a fine line between not reading anything at all and only creating. After all the author has a signup page to receive more of his content. I don't think the author meant that you should not read anything at all. The takeaway for me is:-
1. Be conscious of what you are reading.
2. Realize the opportunity cost of what you are reading/watching.
3. Always be creating something.
If you keep reading murakami and Dan brown, sure you’re just juggling words for no real benefit. But if you’re gonna read the making of the atomic bomb, or team of teams, then maybe it’s not a wasteful exercise. Definitely better than writing if you ask me.
Disagree on this. I used to only read non-fiction, but these days, I feel like reading fiction (especially literary fiction) and having different experiences and empathizing with characters is more beneficial and relevant to my life in _general_ (obviously not always the case). Plus there are no limits to the realities that can be created in fiction, so there are some creative (and escapist) benefits there as well.
I'm not saying fiction is objectively more "beneficial" than non-fiction, I'm just saying the opposite isn't necessarily true either.
It’s as beneficial as listening to music or watching tv is. It’s not inherently more beneficial just because it involves books. No one said tv or music is bad for you and neither is fiction. Just remember it’s entertainment for the most part. Im yet to see someone become wiser because they consume a ton of fiction.
I agree on that, I would like to add that for some of the time, consuming helps us create better. Different kind of consuming activities actually have different leverage on creating value
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.
Something I think about is the desire to share especially when it's not done yet (ego satisfaction). I got into that cycle, sharing things that were like dreams before they even existed/noteworthy. "wouldn't it be cool if..."
Why do you want to become rich? Honest question. What problems are you trying to solve by becoming rich? And are there other ways to solve those problems?
This article inspired me on two things :
1) Lots of the things I do in everyday life is just to consume: buying, watching, following, etc. These things either consume my money, or my time. These things make me feel good, but it does not generate real value. In order to get rich, I need to create things. I also start to realize that great people are great because they started to create things at a very early stage of their life (but not consuming things as they advocate, think about celebrities, entrepreneurs etc), so they are able to practice and perfect the value creating skills to the extreme.
2) I start to realize that the world is binary in nature : I create to sell, I buy to consume. I either at the buyer side, or at the seller side. And in this current society, there is a huge buyer side trap, the whole idea of consumerism and social media is to trap you inside the buyer side, so you keep buying, you keep consuming. I really need to break free from this trap.
This blog post was written before COVID-19, but the idea feels even fresher during this pandemic era