The Artist's Wake of Creation
Pouring your heart and soul into your writing, music, videos, or art is such a beautiful release. It's our divine nature to create. The tough part about the modern age of internet and social media is the expectations that can tag along. I mean, if you're creating for yourself and don't share your creation with anyone else, it's expected that no one can witness it and there's no feedback.
Putting yourself, your creation, a piece of your soul, your BABY out there for the world to see, be inspired by, gain enjoyment and fulfillment from, even learn and grow from, comes with the opposite outcome often… crickets.
You worked so hard, gave it your all, and made something that brings you joy, reflects a valuable part of your soul, and for whatever reason, it doesn't take off. A like or two, maybe a comment if you're ‘lucky’, in a vast global audience of hundreds of millions of souls.
I'm sure every creative person feels this struggle ebb and flow in their life. Getting past the barrier of self; self-judgment, self-confidence, believing in what you're doing, overcoming your perfectionism to release your creation is a massive hurdle in itself. Plus the actual time and energy you put into the creation itself, learning and evolving your artistry. Now it's like you've climbed a mountain just to find a wall at the top. The wall of engagement, algorithms, attention spans, differing interests, that hinder your creation from even reaching the people it's meant to.
This is where the unconscious expectation really bites us in the ass. We've made this beautiful creation, this piece of us, and that's all there is. Is it not ‘meant to’ blow up or go viral? Is it not ‘good enough’? It's perfect; perfectly imperfect, like us. Even when we don't connect with an audience at all, we've gone through the ritualistic endeavor that is the artist’s offering to the universe.
One of the most famously heretical, ancient texts, has a theme of, ‘What you bring forth from within you will set you free. What you repress within you will destroy you.’ I believe that is a great purpose to our creations, whether they get seen by millions, or by no one. You're fulfilling your divine purpose by attuning your frequency to the mystical void that is imagination.
Historically, imagination is a new word. The only word that it can be traced to with continuity around different cultures and countries is soul. On the energetic plane, our creations have a frequency; a totally unique vibration that is projected out into the universe, boundlessly. This universal connectivity blows the internet potential out of the water. This magical offering you've made is a part of us all, and it's actively working it's magic on a subconscious, energetic, and spiritual level.
This is far more important than gaining followers on a social media platform. You are one with everything, and we are all the centers of the same universe. What matters most is the feeling, the vibration of your creation.
You may have set intentions for the project to be heard or seen, may have used wording or visualizations to cater to the masses and what I've learned as an artist is DON’T. This accessibility mindset is not aligned with the true nature of YOU. Your creations as a piece of you don't need to be diluted or dumbed down in efforts to be more palatable for a larger audience. It inhibits the most important factors of attraction in art: abstraction, mystery, curiosity and wonder.
Tell your inside jokes, use words no one else uses, line things up like you have only dreamed of, paint all around the canvas (so to speak). Set your intentions to purge everything pent up and build a creation that is authentically you: raw, unique, and weird.
The process of creating the art, is just as important as the art itself. It's the foundation for the art, often unseen. Release your expectations for people to attune with it. Just make it. Setting intentions for your creation to be a viral sensation is more often than not a trickster quality of our ego, striving for external validation and approval. The important part of your art is YOU. You are worthy of boundless expression. You have the potential to develop, learn and grow and in turn your creations WILL affect the world regardless of how many people witness it in online or in the flesh.
My intention for this piece of writing isn't to inspire YOU, it's to inspire myself. If you feel the inspiration that I feel from this cathartic release, that's a bonus. I definitely love inspiring others, but releasing intentions of the impact of others can be just as powerful as we can't control who or how many people see it or resonate with it. We CAN control how we impact ourselves. So bring the focus on to yourself. Get that creation going for YOU. Feel those goosebumps of creating a piece of magic. That's the real blessing of creation. Only then do the doors open for others to feel the same thing.
