What we perceive and understand depends upon what we are.
-Aldous Huxley
Do I see what you see? How similar are our observations? Is your perception of my art going to be commensurate with the reaction I am hoping to receive from you? Should I create only with the intention of getting a positive reaction from you or rather, create something that feels right to me and hope that maybe you will like it, too?
Creating primarily for approval or acclaim, inhibits originality. Repeating what we have already done successfully in the past just because an audience liked it then, means we are simply copying our own act and not extending ourselves creatively. A dependence on affirmation from others is a creativity cruncher – a direct route to becoming imitative – simply an otherself. – an individual inexorably influenced by societal expectations.
“If we are so removed from ourselves, so very derivative, how can we relate to our own intuitions and to our creative potential? How can we have the confidence to follow our hunches? How do we know that our opinions are really our own?” (HAVE YOU EVER HAD A HUNCH? The Importance of Creative Thinking)
When our creative intentions are primarily based on satisfying a potential audience, we are setting ourselves up for not only being dissatisfied with our own work, but also, possibly, for being disappointed by not having the positive reactions we had anticipated from the audience. We have failed to realize that perceptions are subjective. They are based on different life experiences, aesthetic sensibilities and world-views. So rather, let us sing our own song of creativity…
We are Glimpsibles, flying through the sky,
spinning, twirling, whizzing up high.
Looking at Glimpse from anther point of view,
Seeing things differently, doing what we do.