Email: Isn’t showing great content a way to illustrate creativity?

I think it is. As you stated, not everyone can make games or tell stories, so those who can are really talented, and show it when they make good content.

Yet people in the closed circles of entertainment media get stuck on bad ideas. They see creativity just in the narrow definition of “artistic expression”. Anything less is considered artistic blasphemy (until they get smacked in the proverbial face by the reality that entertainment is still a business). 

So Star Wars (at least the original trilogy) cannot be creative, because despite the hard work and imagination put into realizing that universe and those characters, it wasn’t done in an artistic sense. It doesn’t matter that the characters were well rounded and identifiable to the audience. Their depth wasn’t the kind of complexity that you can write flowery, long winded essays about. And it didn’t matter that making much of the tech and setting to be analogs of real world things turned the universe into one that held a mirror to nature. Symbolism is what’s supposed to be truly artistic. And it doesn’t matter if so many people saw this and basically went “This is so awesome! I want to see more!” (whether it’s sequels or just watching the movie again). The “proper” reaction to art should be making the audience react how the artist intended (some artists claiming their work is meant to cause the audience to think a certain way, and using certain tricks to try to invoke those reactions).

But Star Wars is creative. So is Super Mario Bros, and Wii Sports, and Tetris. They just are creative by figuring out how to realize the content in compelling ways, instead of trying to just let the art flow through the artist. On that note, I wonder if some game developers dream of the possibility of applying “stream of consciousness” to game design.

Sure it’s hard work, but so what? The stuff I want to make isn’t going to be easy, but I accept that the work has to be done. The stuff you do isn’t that easy (which I mean all your work, not just on this site), but you know it has to be done. Those who think art is about being easy are just deluding themselves.

Creativity is about figuring out the best ways to hold the mirror to nature, and each of those ways is still creative.

Creativity is associated with individuality is an illustration of freedom. This is why I have nothing but disgust at all these little dandelions prancing around about their precious ‘creativity’. They have no sense of the world.

Hollywood was founded by Jews fleeing the Holocaust. When they made movies, it was to showcase heroism in all ways. You had Westerns where the cowboy would take out the criminal. You had stories of the ancients such as Spartacus or Ben Hur. Why do you think a grand epic like The Ten Commandments got its money? Regardless, Hollywood showcased heroism and individuality. Why?

It is because when you are fleeing the Holocaust, you are very much in sync with reality. They realized that movies had become a crucible against that evil. Hitler loved movie stars including Jewish ones. The mission of Hollywood was not ‘creative’ in the sense you or I think of it. Something like individuality comes from freedom which you could not get in Nazi Germany. Throughout the Cold War, Communists did see Hollywood as a weapon. Hollywood being known as a crucible throughout those times is not well known. It is why the most intensely anti-Communist US politician did not emerge from the military or the midwest but from Hollywood.

George Washington imitated the play Cato which he loved so much he had it performed at Valley Forge. The play, Cato, is about a Roman hero who took office but then retired to farming and giving up political power.

With Shakespeare’s plays, there are all about ‘how to be a good ruler’ as well as illustrating how to be a ‘good man’. We can understand that Shakespeare understood the power of his medium all too well with the dumb play in Hamlet where Hamlet tries to force out the guilt of the king. Or on something like music, Shakespeare said, “How strange is it that sheep’s guts can hail souls out of men’s bodies?” He found it comedic that something like music could have such an effect on Man.

Why do you want to make anything in media? What is your mission? Why are you here?

Nintendo’s answer during the Wii Era was very interesting. It was to get families playing together, to get people interacting together, and to even have people get physically fit (Wii Fit) or mentally fit (Brain Age). This ended up being a golden age for Nintendo. The reason why was because they weren’t pursuing their ‘creativity’.

You are already a free soul. The only people who get to complain about not being allowed to be ‘creative’ are those living under a harsh regime such as China or a dictator. Those Jewish refugees who fled the Holocaust understood what it meant to not allowed to be ‘creative’ (which is synonymous with liberty and life itself).

When you compare those people of the past to people today, what do we find? People today who complain that they aren’t allowed to embrace their ‘creativity’ create a fantasy world as if they are not free beings, as if the company they work for is Nazi Germany. They sound lame because they are lame. They attack the customers, call them stupid, insult them… why?

Having freedom can be frustrating just as not having freedom is. They have all this freedom to make these ‘creative works’, yet no one is building statues to them. They get frustrated. Perhaps it is because they aren’t the ‘great souls’ of talent they thought they were. They have to blame someone or else they would have to blame themselves.

With any work of content, you cannot escape yourself from the work. A nasty person is going to create a nasty piece of work. If you have some sort of prejudice or biting hatred, it will show up in your work. Your soul animates in your work (which is why Shakespeare believed he discovered immortality via imagination his plays would produce). The mirror of art does not just reflect Nature, it reflects yourself. Good fruit comes from good trees. (“You will know the tree by its fruit.”)

There is a reason why the mantra of this website is to ‘be interesting’. Interesting people create interesting things. If what you make is not interesting, then it is likely because you are not interesting. The reason for the age old advice of ‘to make what you find interesting’ is because people become animated by what you are animated. However, this has been twisted to mean something entirely different as in, “I should make whatever pleases me,” which always means a lazier and more cliche approach. It is the nature of Man to not want to work. What pleases Man is not working at all.

One old piece of advice Miyamoto gave out, that game developers apparently didn’t catch on, was to do things and experience things outside the world of video games. In other words, become interesting. Have curiosity about the world. Read books. Travel. Acquaint yourself with interesting people. Stop trying to live your life to please the people around you.

The point of all this is to become an interesting person. Interesting trees produce interesting fruit.

I’ll have another post coming up about ‘creativity’ and its vanity real soon.