a common way of framing creative pursuits in our culture goes like this: whether or not anyone else likes what you’re doing is ultimately irrelevant. the process is its own reward. just follow your inner muse and you’ll be satisfied. increasingly, i think this is bullshit. not in the harry frankfurt sense that it has no connection to the truth - but in the sense that it omits something crucial. it's a half-truth, and one that can be a massive headache if you bank on it too hard.
obviously, yes, getting high on your own inner world is the best feeling ever and has great spiritual value. but there’s a cost. in pursuing an idiosyncratic creative vision, in researching esoteric subjects, in aiming for a target no else can see, you’re digging a ditch between you and your community. suddenly, you look back and it's a chasm.
but that’s not the problem, really. because there are a lot of ways to deal with that. the simplest is to be such a psychopath that you don’t give a damn, don’t have any nagging sense you should’ve spent all this time out working as an emt or volunteering at a food shelf. most famous artists are like that. another solution is to build up prodigious mental dexterity, enough to make constant jumps back and forth between your island and common land. however, keeping up such athleticism for a lifetime is very demanding. (james tenney rather pessimistically warned that this approach will break you eventually, citing the legendary charles ives.) and of course, there are the permanent solutions: ruefully shoveling the soil back into the mote and merging back into the commons, or holding out for the minuscule possibility that they’ll realize you’re a genius and start building towards you. but perhaps the best solution is to find a sub-community of people who will either make the jump with you or are able to shout across the rift.
what’s funny is that so often, in my experience, the same people reassuring you that the creation process is its own reward one day can be found bemoaning their own lack of worldly recognition a few days later. (many of these people i respect a lot!) so what’s going on? if you take the frame of noble self sufficiency and toil for its own sake as the whole truth, then the answer is simple: feelings of frustration are surfacings of inner impurity, personal character failings that need to either be stamped out or ignored. “oh, you’re actually wondering if all this time invested in something only you care about was worth it? how embarrassing!” it’s a mental loop i’ve already been through many times, in just a few minor undertakings.
so that’s the deeper problem: the half truth of the creation process being its own reward gaslights you by ignoring its inherently isolating nature - ignores that the dark side is built in. no, the feeling of unease you get when you're off on your own and look back over your shoulder isn’t a failing. it just means you have some semblance of a conscience about how you spend your extremely limited time on earth. it’s an inevitable part of the journey, a force as primal as hunger and thirst. something not to be transcended but planned and accounted for.
(don't remember where i read this, but in old age, eliane radigue apparently had the epiphany that she found collaborating on music more rewarding than working in complete solitude. i used to think that was stupid, changing your mind on that so late into the game, but i don't anymore.)
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