note to self: just because someone did the thing you were thinking about doing, and did it way better than you could ever hope to do, doesn’t mean it would be stupid or pointless to go ahead and try to still do the thing anyway.
Also, when it comes to creative things? There really is no “better”.
Sure, someone might be more technically accomplished than you – you might not be able to colour as nicely or craft a sentence that rings as poetically – but art is only really secondarily about that. It’s firstmost about what you, uniquely, have to express, and how the precise way you express it might be what others need to relate to it – even if it’s less flashy, less “beautiful”, and gets fewer notes.
I promise you this: there are obscure fanfics with only a handful of notes that are the read-and-re-read favourites of someone too anxious to comment. There are drawings done by 14-year-olds in poorly-blended markers that are someone’s favourite because they spoke to something that nothing else did. There are covers of songs where your voice cracks and you cringe every time you hear it but someone thinks the way it cracked just at that moment added beauty to the song. There are angsty three-line poems you wrote at 4am that someone once called “pretentious emo trash” that are loved by someone else going through the same thing as you.
And I guarantee you, there is something unique about your art. Even if you’re “saying something someone else has said”. Even if you’re the thousandth person to take on the subject. Even if you feel like you’re not at all unique. You’re bound to express something, however subtle, that didn’t exist until then.
Art is about connection. And the more you create, the more chance you have of finding other people who experience the world the way you do.
“But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.“ via @neil-gaiman
The “two cakes” theory of content production.
It was only yesterday that I was lamenting thing I no longer felt allowed to do because someone had done similar.
I ought to read this post daily. Maybe twice daily.
I got slammed with work at 4pm on a Friday afternoon (holy carp and other fish) and this is actually relevant this week with Liefeld’s Netflix deal. This cures all bad moods. So does the sequel.
Look, I love the natural world, and all of its wonders. But sometimes evolution has obviously had a few drinks, taken things a little too far, and when called on it, decided to double down.
These whimsical wooden automata are the creations of contemporary Japanese woodworker Kazuaki Harada. We’re particularly fond of the dancing ham and veggies. After first spending a year studying under English master automata-maker Matt Smith, Harada began crafting his own automatons in 2002. His playful pieces vary in both size and complexity, but all are operated by the turning of a single handle and are created in the spirit of simply delighting people. Why else would you create an automaton wearing nothing but socks, with the ability to boil a pot of tea on his own belly?
Steel Phoenix Studios 