alt Hacker News> Creativity, like many other aspects of a persons life, seems to be more like a muscle than an inherent skill.
Ehh, I'm not so sure. I've never been creative. I've always been good at creating, but it's more recreating, since I hardly ever have any original ideas. Whereas my creative friends seem to have a never ending spigot of ideas. But I do really appreciate the creativity of others. I guess out of wanting what I don't have.
I see what you’re saying but I also think that recreating is a way to exercise the creative muscle as well.
At least in my own experience I feel like I also hardly have any original ideas, but the more I learn about, mimic, and study the creations of others, the more i find ways to integrate those creations into my own. Unless you’re God, I’d argue that almost nothing is brought to creation in a vacuum, even your creative friends are probably creating based on drawn inspiration from countless sources that they studied or recreated themselves for who knows how long.
It’s work, but it’s fulfilling work, in my opinion, to mimic and recreate until one day you take a step back and realize that what you just created is uniquely yours, even if you can point to the many aspects of it that were borrowed from others.