The Creation Consumption Divide
The Creation Consumption Divide
I never remember reading that many medical blogs. Back in the early two thousands, I entered the community mainly as a creator. As sad sad as it sounds, I didn’t feel like there was much to learn. I knew what being a doctor was about. I got most of my educational material from journals. Often I perused blogs rather disinterestedly. And then I found personal finance. Probably in 2014. I dove in head first and hit a sort of creation consumption divide.
I stopped writing about medicine and started reading about personal finance. Sure I popped out a medical blog here and there. But now I was a true consumer. I scoured my favorite blogs everyday trying to be the first to read. The first to comment.
Times Change
I started writing this blog at the end of 2017. My frequent posting schedule turned into every day. Then, as I built up the courage to cut down at work, I started a podcast. As the creative juices flow stronger and stronger, I am finding myself standing at the abyss once again.
The creation consumption divide stares back up at me. The deeper I dive into writing and podcasting, the less I read other’s work. New bloggers surface, old bloggers peel away, and I am continually behind the times.
I read and comment less. I connect less with other creators and turn inward. It’s kind of the way I do things.
Time Changes
Time is not the issue. There is certainly enough time in the day to read other people’s stuff voraciously and also produce my own. Especially with the freedom of financial independence. The creation consumption divide is something much deeper. Something harder to grasp.
It’s the emotional energy. Both take up a certain amount of emotional energy. Consumption requires an active mind ready to compare and contrast ideas. Ready to question assumptions and even take action when necessary.
Creation is a lot more philosophical. There is a deep dive into one’s own deeply held assumptions, and a certain turn inward that by nature is somewhat self indulgent.
Exclusive.
What I Miss Most
By far, what I miss most, is the community. Being the achievement and treadmill oriented person that I am, my focus tends to narrow. Lost in the creation consumption divide, I rarely stick my head up to take a deep breath, and see what is going on around me.
This is both glorious and frustrating at the same time. The world is going on without me, relationships are fraying, and I am lost in a consumptive self indulgent whirlwind.
I can’t say that the enrapture doesn’t feel good.
But I can’t help but think that community was one of the main reasons I came to personal finance and financial independence in the first place.
Final Thoughts
I have come to know myself over the years. When considering the creation consumption divide, I mostly fall on the creation side. It is who I am. I write more than I read. I create more podcast episodes than I give my ear to. Sometimes I talk more than I listen.
I’d like to change this a little.
One way to improve things, I’ve found, is to spend adequate prep time on each podcast we produce. By nature of the panel being 3-4 guests, I have a good helping of content to consume to be able to ask the right questions.
It’s not perfect.
But it’s a start.
I did a post about this a while ago. The word consumer is a charged word, especially in our community, and sometimes when they hear it people think of sitting and watching Netflix all day, or just buying stuff. But in order to be a good creater, especially in things like the written word or visuals, you have to consume. Everybody’s creations are derived from others
Very true. But the farther you go down the creation rabbit hole, the less energy you have to consume.
Once you had concluded time was not the impediment to consumption whilst creating a great deal of content I was glad to see the next sentence focused on energy, which is the first thing that sprang to my mind.
Although I think there is a divide between creation and consumption I think they can also closely linked in certain circumstances. For example during your podcast, a creative endeavour you create, you listen to (i.e. consume) the answers of the panel in order to get the most out of the conversation. You may have Pre-prepare questions, but if you were to ask those without any regard to the answers being given then the quality of the conversation with each panel would most likely not be as high (you would all be talking past each other).
During the podcast you simultaneously consume AND create. In fact the answers of the panel, that you consume, directly feed into and inform the content that you are creating i.e. the act of consuming the panel is integral to creating each podcast episode.
You may argue that listening to answers is purely an act of creation and that the podcast involves no consumption on your part. To that I say what if you recorded the show and then realised nothing had been recorded? You would not have created anything, arguably you have still consumed. What about if the conversion was recorded but lost before publication? Once again you have consumed, arguably you have or did create something in such a scenario but it was destroyed / lost. Or have you only created something when you hit publish?
Ultimately, it is the delineation of what one regards as creation and consumption that will inform where one believes the boundaries of the creation / consumption divide should be drawn.
HH
HH
The podcast has solved many of these issues for me. Good points.
Awesome post. I am definitely a consumer of content more than I am a producer of content. I first pondered this after listening to an episode on the choose FI podcast about this topic. I soon after started my blog. I might never find balance, but at least I’m given it a good effort. I feel like 90% of our society are consumers. I’m also curious to know what the other avenues are for finding balance/creating content besides starting a blog or commenting on blog posts?
Hey Frankie, I am starting to think podcasting is a great mix. In researching for the show, I am consuming. But then i get to create also.
Just how many McDonald’s $1 burgers do you want to consume? In the beginning FIRE is breathlessly interesting and dramatic. Then it becomes: “another 10 ways to pick your nose and achieve monstrous wealth: crowdfunding!!!!” (4, count ’em, 4 !). There is no where to go but in. It’s like socialism, you soon run out of “other people’s content” and are left with just the marketing. This is not to diss in the least what other people write or their effort, it’s just the nature of the beast. FIRE lives in a little bounded set of normative dictums that everyone knows to be “true” whether they are or not and so it becomes like trying to arrange “Mary had a Little Lamb” 38 ways on the piano. It still sounds like a nursery rhyme when all is said and done, because it is a nursery rhyme. The only way around it is to move to the perimeter and explore what is beyond.
Great point. I think this mostly rings true. It is a big challenge for us content producers. How do we produce info that is more consumable. More interesting.
I totally agree with you Gasem. The dollar menu of content when it comes to FIRE is huge. Especially if you go on the marketting center for bolgs, Pinterest. You’ll find so many pins that will lead to to blog post about the 5 steps to make 1 million dollars in 2 seconds and the 2 steps to cut your budget 99 percent. After you read them all they are all basically saying the same thing, with the exceptions of a few scams here and there. That’s why I love this blog. It focuses on the meat and potatoes of FI which is the why of FI.
Honestly I still consume constantly reading posts, magazines, and books at any break. But I’ve stopped commenting often outside my blog to some extent. Present comment excluded. There is a lot of derivative content per Gasems point. I go looking for the unique, the new idea about how to travel hack, save money, or manage taxes. I’d say I don’t find it that often but that’s when I comment.
That’s definitely one way to manage it. The commenting does take some time.