don’t put people in your canoe if you don’t like their oars in the water

Starting this blog was about expressing my ideas and incites and being a kind of portfolio for consistency. The latter aspect hasn’t been going great but I am starting to understand why. The why has it’s roots in fear. I fear putting myself out there, I fear expressing what I truly want to express. for the risk of rejection. I am attempting to deal with this issue by understanding that it isn’t a reaction to my work that I should be gearing writing towards, but instead it should be simply the former purpose that of expression. But all expression yearns for feedback.

The lesson is;

Quit involving people that take rather then give.

I have had a life time of attempting to change what I do, this is because I am a rational person who sees truth in exercise and in artistic outlets. God was the greatest creator and we were created in his image, so we are creators. The whole way along though I have done one thing that I now realize as a mistake, I invited people to weigh in who have no right to weigh in. these people were co-workers, parents of my kid’s classmates, teachers and so on.

As an artist you have drive.

Drive is attractive.

We underestimate the attachment other people have to our drive. Drive is one of the rarest things in the world, so when we attempt to explain what we are driving towards, people will ether attempt to diminish the worth of drive or people will attempt to suck your drive towards themselves by comparison or by guilt. I worked with custodians as a custodian. but the difference was I still had drive. Being a custodian is one of the hardest jobs to retain your drive during because the very nature of your work is undone every day. This beats the optimism out of you, as we all like to believe that our work lasts. That our work matters. I consider this the least useful job to find artistic encouragement in.

If you talk to other employees about your art you will find very quickly that there are those who want to change the subject quickly.  It’s not that these people aren’t always interested, it is simply that they don’t want a reminder of what they themselves are not accomplishing. Most people have a idea in they’re head of what they are and what they do. And a lot of these ideas are false, if you asked a Ku Klux klan member if they are fair and objective, how would they answer? Of course they would say that they’re fair and objective, anything else threatens they’re whole ideology, they’re self-worth, and identity.  for this reason, you cannot trust people to accurately judge themselves and they’re abilities. It is also the reason people don’t want comparisons. This is why you saw the rise of the anti-hero in cinema. People gravitate towards a more blemished hero because it is easier to reconcile your own blemishes. People don’t want to stand next to a shiny perfect hero because the contrast would be unbearable, this is the same reason people don’t want to stand next to you, when you talk about what projects your working on or the successes you have or even just the struggle to express yourself. Don’t involve these people, generally you will get some polite exchanges but if you continue this discourse it will lead to nothing, or you will take them further into your head as an influence. Don’t do that. Don’t mistake polite conversation for actual interest, it will get you nowhere. Also understand that if most people don’t have the ability to be honest with themselves how much less will they be honest with you. Remember words are cheap, actions costly.

We have diminished the value of art in our western society, most people will not have the same level of care as you do, although it may appear different. In the same way you wouldn’t take free babysitting  from strangers, accept that people have a different level of investment to art then yourself and although we wish everybody could value things equally, we know this is not the case and so we don’t accept free baby sitting or feel it wise to leave our baby sitting in the food court while we take a leak. Don’t lightly accept free advice from people on your art as it is the cheapest of all gifts.

When you talk to people about what you are going to do. There is generally two ways a person can handle this; one is objectively, in which they remain fully ambivalent as it is your project and so isn’t related to themselves. This generally goes great, People who actually don’t care will tell the truth. But this is at least 99.9% of the time not going to be the case no, People will bring themselves into it. they will compare, and if they have any artistic bent in themselves being repressed they will diminish what you are planning in some way, this can be as simple as stating the difficulty or as complex as lateral dis-encouraging. lateral dis-encouraging is when you attempt to mutually share laziness sideways. If you find yourself during your discourse about art with someone, saying something about planning to do something but It’s just so hard. You are fishing for ‘approved laziness’, you are banking that the person will rationalize they’re laziness with yours, which will be a stamp of approval mentally. This is dangerous to you stop doing this you are looking for a way out because you are lazy and creating is risky your lizard brain seeks to minimize both work and risk, fishing like This gets you nowhere, whereas a encouraging hard ass critic will both acknowledge difficulty and press for victory and perseverance.  The other will simply co-op your laziness and you both will get nothing done and feel good in your mutual lazyness for a while. Accept art is difficult and risky, it is easier to work from that posture.

Most people will react to your creative drive selfishly, they will be challenge by it and being reminded of their own short coming and attempt to talk-down-the-value.  This can be as simple as bringing in the other aspects of life into the conversation, the responsibilities that we all have. This is to again rationalize quitting.  In this mind set people talk themselves out of whatever art they could be creating by rationalizing the need to focus on real life. This is the route of the loser and is also dangerous as you can shift your artistic drive to a non-artistic field and this will cause burnout as you are putting so much effort into a non-energy-returning field.  If you attempt to reverse this you will first feel bad Lessing your efforts in this field which could be your job or your daily responsibilities. Also secondly you will be in a very low energy state because of the constant grind. plus the fact these are truly the day in day out activities. Means you can only drop them for so long before the dishes pile up and the diapers need changed so to speak. You must balance your art with life, but don’t forget where you get energy return from which has the highest payout. Don’t forget that art takes work and life takes balance these must both be addressed.

The other way people react is to straight up discount your work. I see this all the time with my friend who has attempted to get artistic work only to discover people are very unwilling to pay for his time. This is because the people who wish to pay him are ether jealous of his skill, or have an art bent and now are challenged by the reminder that art is worth something. If you can always say its worthless you will never feel ok paying for it. meaning if you can discount someone else’s art you can rationalize that it’s not worth your time to pursue it yourself. Many people will not want to pay for art as it is to costly to they’re own views. Do not engage with these people they are time sucking losers who will always balk at paying you. contracts and non-price disclosure clauses are your friends in this area. Don’t take it personally these people don’t always even know they are doing this, it is just they’re lizard coping mechanism.

All in all involve people who fuel your fire and give actual good feedback, who don’t co-oped laziness and who will understand the worth of art. Others can be won over later but it is too much of a time suck, to attempt to sway other’s beliefs about art, simply focus your energy at getting better.