Stop Consuming and Create!

My last post was not written out of boredom. I wrote it because I was, and still am, mad at me. Mad because I’m letting myself go, I’m caving in into a state of information overload.

I find myself consuming more information that I should and this is having a downside effect on one of the most important aspects of oneself: creativity.

I can strongly say that I’ve stopped being a creative person, I’m an active consumer but a passive creator… Creativity is like a muscle, you stop exercising it and it goes limp, dull, gray and flat. Your ideas are no longer your own, they are someone else’s ideas because when you come up with a concept, a photo, a text, an algorithm, someone else already did it. And they did it better than you, and the worst part is, you know it, because in your dormant, numb stasis you were waiting. The same information you consumed was also consumed by others, the difference is that they didn’t stopped working out their brains and creativity. The used it.

Remember Polaroids? Those old instant film photo cameras? Most people think the brand died… well it did, but two entrepreneurs saw an opportunity in a market that was being taken by the digital photo technology. They resuscitated the brand and called it “The Impossible Project”, a name that’s suited to what could be considered a failed industry, but they went the extra mile on the road not taken by many.

They innovated, they used their creativity and created a brand that restored a product still demanded by fans of the iconic Polaroid brand. Time will tell if they are successful, nevertheless their products are tools to stimulate creativity.

It’s like a cycle, creativity generates creativity.  I know that the outcome of the creative process is above all else a product of consumption, but don’t take it too lightly, use it as inspiration, learn from it.

Be creative above all things.

I Need a Wake Up Call…

I took some time to look at my blog and it saddens me to say that I my post count has never been so low, both in quantity and quality.

I still rant and have my own opinions (DUH!) but the need to share my different views with the world (the five persons who visit my blog) has changed. Don’t ask my why, maybe it’s laziness, procrastination or just the “plague” of Twitter and Facebook micro blogging… this or perhaps the excess of information available on the Internet.

Face it. It has never been so easy to get information on whatever topic you want, specially if you’re into technology and video games. There are millions of sites and blogs replicating every bit of news and info that comes up, it’s like an infinite echo of information. What value do we, as bloggers,  add to the flow of information? Our personal opinions? Rants? Sometimes we might even mislead our readers when our posts have little or no quality…

I guess the true reason I stoped blogging is because I “looked around” and found out that I’m not actually creating, I’m not adding value, I’m copying what’s being copied millions of times per second. I’m an echo…

Yup… I need a wake up call. We all do.