How to be original and exceptional at what you create?

[Lyubov]

Ok I will keep this concise and understandable.

I make videos. You can switch out videos here for stories, for writing, anything on the creative side. 

I think what I make is decent but it’s not great and I believe above great there are some people making videos on YouTube, writing books, etc that are just excellent. I’m talking like 15-30 minutes of pure gold and most of these videos get the views. 

So aside from effort, which we know commitment and effort are important, what makes a content creator or story teller or writer or whatever (creative person) truly great, truly original and special? I’m not talking just raw numbers of subs. There are exceptionally great accounts with like 100k subs. But I’m talking about reaching that level instead of just being a sort of imitation of someone else or a less original channel / creator.

How to be really creative and original? Seems like some people ride waves as they emerge and part of it is commitment and being attuned and in flow but also some luck as well. 

[LastThursday]

@Lyubov there is technicality and originality. If you're having to compete in a market place then you're jostling with other creators for eyeballs. You choose a niche and then try and stand out in that corner of the market. 

You can produce content for its own sake because you have some latent ability or drive to produce a particular type of content. For example maybe I like to create music because I'm good at it or enjoy it, and just want to share my creations. This can work because your talent or enthusiasm comes through in your creation. Someone out there will enjoy consuming that. But this can be hit or miss in a market.

You can actually explore the market and work out where the empty niches are. Maybe you see there's a gap around some idea like "history of manga". It feels interesting enough to you to start researching in that area, and you start to pump out videos around that subject. Over time you build up a fan base. The idea is original because nobody else thought about it before. The idea is good because you don't have competition in the market (think Leo Gura).

You can also just imitate existing content but just do it better than others. If you do a lot of work in one area then you can continuously strive to improve your creations. This is technicality, you polish the production of your music, or make your videos tighter with better lighting and sound. I think this naturally happens if you do something a lot, but you can consciously work on technicality too. This is probably good for people that are not super original, but do like to compete against others. 

There is a difference between just being creative and original for its own sake and being creative and original for an audience in a market place. Originality comes from actively choosing things that others haven't done before. Creativity is the constant desire to be original.

Edited yesterday at 08:27 AM by LastThursday
typos

[Joseph Maynor]

You just really have to be yourself.  

[Xonas Pitfall]

23 hours ago, Lyubov said:

How to be really creative and original? Seems like some people ride waves as they emerge and part of it is commitment and being attuned and in flow but also some luck as well. 

Most creativity is really just intelligent synthesis. A lot of novel ideas can be traced back to something similar that already existed, which was then extrapolated, adapted, or recombined in a new way.

For example, the underlying principles behind AI aren't necessarily novel in nature. Nature has been processing information, adapting, and learning long before humans existed. What's original is that we've found a way to translate some of these principles into artificial systems that can perform useful tasks in ways previous machines couldn't.

That's why people often recommend studying your own niche alongside completely unrelated niches, then synthesizing what you've learned. I'd argue this is an amazing approach to creativity. A biologist might recognize a pattern in development that a software developer wouldn't, and vice versa. But if you can understand both fields, you might recognize a connection that neither would have noticed independently.

So I'd argue that originality isn't necessarily about creating something entirely unprecedented. It's about aggregating knowledge from different sources and connecting it in ways that produce new insights. The originality lies in the connections themselves.

If that's the case, then one of the best ways to optimize for creativity is to expose yourself to a wide range of knowledge, especially ideas from niche fields that you wouldn't ordinarily encounter, and then look for connections between them.

Another important factor is iteration. Your first idea might not be original. Neither might your second, third, or fourth. But if you keep iterating while continually feeding your mind new information, eventually you might arrive at something genuinely novel.

Creativity is partly a function of how much useful knowledge you've accumulated, how well you can connect seemingly unrelated ideas, and how many iterations you're willing to go through before finding a connection that actually works.

Edited 19 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Joseph Maynor]

Think for yourself and be proud of it no matter the consequences.

[oOo]

This is far simpler than what people make it.

Here's a straightforward thought experiment that makes my point.

I want you to imagine a completely original world in a flash with your eyes closed.

Notice how the world you created is biased based on what you have seen before?

Good originality happens at the intersection between variation and what's already happened; that's synthesis.

For example, I reverse engineer businesses and products across as many different domains as I can, no matter the industry.

There is no other way for me to create cool investment and business ideas, and just invention generally speaking. I learn and incredible amount.

One of the big things you learn is what not to do as well, something that is really difficult to learn by yourself instead you pick it up by syncing intuitively with the business and people you're analysing through simulation and osmosis.

Identify not only not what to do, but who not to follow as well. The latter is used in other areas, like life-paths and teenage development "I don't want you hanging around so and so they're a bad influence on you son/daughter!", however its entirely underestimated when it comes to business, investment, entrepreneurship and just, anything you want to do creatively really, including personal development. Analogous to staying in a culture for a little too long or just comparing changes in a new culture to your old cultural influences, your language intonation, tone, timing and general slang along with emotional emphases can potentially dramatically change. We also see this 

This is why at least for the coming years, I have absolutely zero interest in going to Silicon Valley (i.e. well-known for entrepreneurship) and view it as a net negative on not only my development but even potentially my reputation depending on how worse they get. I'm so glad I never decided to go Stanford University. I believe it would have been a massive mistake despite genuinely wanting to in recent years prior to what has now emerged as an undeniable pattern concerning the lack of discernible ethical education propagated through their culture and subsequent implicit social currency. 

I made a prediction that OpenAI and Anthropic may for example go bankrupt within the next 5 years.

I very much view Silicon Valley going down a similar track if they don't learn from the mistakes of not only their own environment but what has now become an undeniable geopolitical foothold for the USA as a whole. The way the country has handled AI as a geopolitical and social weapon of capitalistic exploitation deeply reveals the underlying dangerous levels of corruption the USA is now completely memetically entangled with. What remains an open question, is determining just how long its been this bad and whether how obvious it is now is an increase from the past or merely revealing what was already there. 

With all that said, to bring about your highest creativity concerning, pursue your most altruistic intent where it feels genuinely meaningful for you to do so. That will fuel motivation, connection and social circles otherwise never before available to you. There is always an energetic sync with the third, energetic ties with the more altruistic circles for example will not naturally emerge with the underlying truth being alive enough that it can be heard and reflected back.

Good luck, and, start creating; and while you're creating, continue feeding your own principles to answer your own question and you'll be able to funnel that continuously into your endeavours unique to your own self-knowledge. 

[Joseph Maynor]

You definitely need feedback too.  This is why we are all on here. 

[LordFall]

Who and what do you find original and exceptional? Find inspiration from it and create your own original work from it.

Leo took inspiration from RSD. Elon Musk took inspiration from NASA. I'm inspired by video games and cryptocurrency.

Combine cool ideas with products and services that solve mankind's deeps problems and I think you'll be on the road to exceptional creations soon enough.