at the bottom of the creative process is substance.

substance is the aether. it's the primordial goo aether from which composition arises.

substance can be anything — an idea, a premise, an observation, inspiration.

substance has many forms, all of them smoke, dust, intangible. substance is the clay with which you mold your composition.

this can take many complicated forms: landscape design, architecture, software engineering

or it can take simpler forms, like color theory; blue and yellow are substances that make green, a composition.

to understand the difference between a substance and composition, you can think about it like math.

can this thing be broken up into smaller parts? yes? then it's a composition.

can this thing be broken up into smaller parts? no? then it's a substance.

this is the same thing we see in chemistry with atoms and molecules.

in many, if not most, if not all, fields of study, there are Primary Things and Composite Things. you can factor a poem in the same way that you can factor the number 9.

some may read this and think "if we can just make everything an equation, doesn't that cold and mathematical?" and I challenge you to ask instead a question in the other direction; maybe something like "how can I intentionally use Primaries to create systems that yield beautiful Composites?"

you can use Math as a tool to reduce everything to algorithms, or you can use Math as a tool to create sustained beauty in the world.

the former feels manipulative, over-optimized, hyper-focused, robotic, cold, cyberpunk, and hollow.

the latter feels bohemian, balanced, relaxed, collected, organic, warm, substantive.

every tool is just that: a tool.

it's up to the user to determine the morality of the use-case.