Justin Dickinson
Helps Make the Internet

I’m restless because I’m doing way too much consuming and not enough creating. Every day I’m on Twitter, Tumblr, Vimeo, Facebook, Foursquare, and my RSS feeds and all I do is read about all of the awesome stuff going on around me, but I never contribute anything myself. The space that I’m passionate about (technology) is at the most exciting point it has ever been in its history, and here I am sitting around on my chair doing nothing about it.

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- Joseph Schmitt // So Long, And Thanks for All The Fish

I’ve had a similar realization lately myself. Except mine came after I realized I’m fostering a growing envy for all the people I see achieving great things around me.

I absolutely believe in the idea that you should constantly surround yourself with people smarter than you, it’s one of the major reasons I decided to work at Vimeo. Observation without contribution turns awe into envy and inspiration into jealousy. It can be a dark road.

First, I want to stop being negative; fight that feeling of “why didn’t I think of that? It should’ve been me!” and instead congratulate my peers for their amazing achievements. Creativity and innovation are not a finite resource. It’s easy to think all the good ideas have already been had but in five years there’ll be a whole new group of people I’m envious of who, right now, are out there creating, not wishing they’d thought of someone else’s idea.

I feel like I too will back away a bit from Twitter, Facebook, etc. At least turn down the info spigot to a trickle. That’s the only way to free up my time enough to start working on the things I want to do. I have great ideas but they’re nothing but brain crack† without action.

So far, so good. Before writing this post—but after reading Joe’s—I took a favor asked of me by a friend and tried out some new CSS techniques with which I’ve been meaning to experiment. Michael wanted a map on his contact page with a pointer to where he lives. I rotated some elements, used some trickery to create the arrowhead, and added text-shadow to imply some depth. I’m quite pleased with the result.

My fingers are crossed and I hope I can go through with this personal renaissance. I hope Joe can too: he gave me a hint at the project he’s been working on and I am selfishly glad he’s finding more time for it because I want to use it. Now.

† This is one of my favorite things ever. I have watched this video countless times when I need to rekindle my creativity. If you only watch one video I share on this blog, make it this.