Crash Early, Crash Often (Ribbonfarm Roughs Book 3)

by Venkatesh G. Rao

Imagination is not the same as creativity. If it were, artists would not commit suicide as often as they do. Creative expression that lacks imagination is often the result of shadowyak shaving. A dead giveaway is when the primary consumer of a kind of creative output is other creators of similar kinds of output (often true of small, artistic subcultures or writers of Medium self-actualization posts). The creativity of the shadow acts as a sort of internal terrorist insurrection against the tyranny of the mask. It is never strong enough to defeat the mask, or open enough to integrate it, but is strong enough to prevent the mask from winning. This makes shadow creativity no more than a controlled, self-limiting and aestheticized version of the homeless man’s rant on the street corner. It serves to create a unique identity for the speaker and signal that the mask is not dominant, but it does not actually have much effect beyond that. The reason such creativity only attracts similar creators is that the shadows of similar people are similar, and tend to project onto shared external realities. The result is shared meaning and patterns of mutual esteem that exclude those who are dissimilar. Such creativity does not put a dent in the universe. At best it puts a dent in your bank account.