DAMN YOU, CONVENTIONAL WISDOM!
So, I was thinkin' some thoughts, and since I was on the internet I'm postin' 'em for you to read. Ah, how I envy you. I need to figure out some tags so that when people are looking through my collected body of e-work they can skip the boring emotive bits, but I ain't got none, so SUCK IT.
My beef is with one piece of conventional wisdom in particular, the bit that says "you shouldn't be motivated by wanting success, you should do things because you love doing them", with the corollary that you will not be successful if all you want is success.
This may be true, and since it's such a common piece of feel-good advice from the creative types it seems probable, but that don't mean I gotta like it! I don't create things because I love the creative process, (some of you may think you're original in pointing out that I don't actually create much at all, but YOU AIN'T. I KNOW.) I create things because I want people to like them. Maybe I'll find some obscure type of creative expression that I'm both super-awesome at AND people love, but I don't have that. I make things that I think I'm almost decent at, because I want people to like my output, and by association me. I don't have any attachment to writing, in particular. I enjoy writing, sure. Maybe it provides some much needed catharsis, without which I'd be a gibbering heap, but I do not write for myself. There is a reason that I have a livejournal, but do not keep a regular journal, the reason being that if no one else will ever read something, it is purposeless for me. I write in this venue because I know that two or three people will read it, and hopefully enjoy it, and I want, nay demand, adulation from as many sources as I can get it.
Maybe I'm wrong, and because of my impure and tainted reasons for putting stuff in the public arena I'll never be great at anything, but them's the facts, and every time I hear the "hunting for acclaim will get you nowhere", it bums me out a little bit, because I have an unquenchable thirst for fame. This sounds moderately selfish (and like I need to lay off the comma juice) even to me, and that's what I hate; the idea that doing something solely so that other people will like it/me is wrong.
I'm not really sure how to end this rant, so I'll do it thusly-
FIN
My beef is with one piece of conventional wisdom in particular, the bit that says "you shouldn't be motivated by wanting success, you should do things because you love doing them", with the corollary that you will not be successful if all you want is success.
This may be true, and since it's such a common piece of feel-good advice from the creative types it seems probable, but that don't mean I gotta like it! I don't create things because I love the creative process, (some of you may think you're original in pointing out that I don't actually create much at all, but YOU AIN'T. I KNOW.) I create things because I want people to like them. Maybe I'll find some obscure type of creative expression that I'm both super-awesome at AND people love, but I don't have that. I make things that I think I'm almost decent at, because I want people to like my output, and by association me. I don't have any attachment to writing, in particular. I enjoy writing, sure. Maybe it provides some much needed catharsis, without which I'd be a gibbering heap, but I do not write for myself. There is a reason that I have a livejournal, but do not keep a regular journal, the reason being that if no one else will ever read something, it is purposeless for me. I write in this venue because I know that two or three people will read it, and hopefully enjoy it, and I want, nay demand, adulation from as many sources as I can get it.
Maybe I'm wrong, and because of my impure and tainted reasons for putting stuff in the public arena I'll never be great at anything, but them's the facts, and every time I hear the "hunting for acclaim will get you nowhere", it bums me out a little bit, because I have an unquenchable thirst for fame. This sounds moderately selfish (and like I need to lay off the comma juice) even to me, and that's what I hate; the idea that doing something solely so that other people will like it/me is wrong.
I'm not really sure how to end this rant, so I'll do it thusly-
FIN