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It’s upsetting to see posts by creative people upset about not having enough kudos, comments, likes or retweets. It’s upsetting because it sucks to see brilliant, creative people beating themselves up like that, but I think there’s another reason why it’s so uncomfortable: (1/7)
by allowing the size of your audience to dictate how you feel about your work, you’re putting *me,* the potential audience, in charge of your emotional well-being. (2/7)
And guys, I’m barely capable of being in charge of my OWN emotional well-being some days. Please don’t give me that kind of power over you. It’s too heavy for me; I can’t hold it. Ideally, don’t give that kind of power to anyone. (3/7)
I get it. It feels good to have people see and like and express gratitude for the stuff you make. It feels kind of addictive, actually. And it feels shitty to expect that feeling and then not get it, or not get as much of it as you wanted or expected. (4/7)
But I think it’s a learned skill, and it’s one we owe to ourselves and to others to practice every time we create. Because the other thing is, every person’s numerical metric for a “failure” is someone else’s “stretch goal.” (5/7)
And it hurts to see someone get upset/angry over “only” getting an amount of feedback that would be above average, for you. It feels like being conscripted into a race you never signed up for and don’t want to be running, but are now being reminded you’re losing. (6/7)
“Just write for yourself” is clichéd, boring advice. So this is a reminder for me, and anyone else who wants it, that the reason it’s clichéd is because it’s horribly, inescapably true, and ignoring it will always end with the psychological equivalent of a knife to the gut. (7/7)
