Meaningful Lives

You cannot do something that has political ramifications, and completely ignore the fact that it does. Social media was the canary in the coal mine on this front, as well as the vanguard for AI. Geeks are the most dangerous people on this front because they are so immersed in the code. It’s their form of creativity and flow experience. We have to remember that the very early days of computers were an extension of the arts--and the people that were drawn to it were probably doing something peripheral in music or art. They were people that wanted to do nothing more than to be creative, in all aspects of life.

It is almost a cliche in current times that creativity is a means of having a meaningful life. All creative people should eventually become aware that creativity is not always about having fun. It's normal that it's boring and frustrating. Many times the "why" question goes unanswered because of the fear that boredom may ensue. If the answer is that it is for the joy of it, then working is for soul enrichment—as it should. The work is the meditation.

Some of us are talented in very narrow ways and aren't really into investigating nuance. For example, Elton John is almost the opposite of David Bowie, even though they inhabited the same cultural moment, and wrote songs on the same topic sometimes, e.g. Rocketman/Space Oddity. Bowie’s approach was deep and existential whereas Elton was concerned only about performance and less about the arty or literary aspects.

From a book I'm reading "Coders", re narrow creativity:

“I saw a lot of really smart people who are smart in a narrow kind of way,” says Alex Payne, an early coder for Twitter. And they were narrow “in a way that didn’t kind of intersect with [other aspects of life]. Folks who were just interested in [performing]...but who just had no insight into [deeper creativity]. They had nothing in their intellectual toolbox that would help them understand [the philosophical, political, or spiritual]." (p. 322)