Imagine the ego required to put your crap art out into the world and pretend it’s amazing as if it’s something people should notice, or care about, or the audacity of the artist to assume that someone should love it? Imagine the ego required to talk it up – to say “I made this, I think it’s excellent!” We tend to associate that sort of ego with the brash, confident, brazen artist.
But, that very same egocentricity is responsible for the opposite effect, too. We don’t often associate egocentricity with the shy, introverted maker. But, imagine being so egocentric to think that anyone would notice or would even care about your work so much that you would be embarrassed by their reaction. To think so much of yourself that you would even get a reaction at all? When people have so much stuff to draw their attention in a world hellbent on content creation, it’s pretty egocentric to hold back your work from the public eye for fear of some sort of large-scale social media-driven embarrassment. Isn’t it? What’s so special about you?
What this means is that we have two options. We can use our ego to hide from the world. We can work in private and never share what we make for fear of being noticed. Or, we can use our ego to engage with the world and share the work we make. If it’s true that, chances are, no will care anyway, then we’ve got nothing to lose. And if someone does happen to notice, then you made something that matters. You can learn from that and put it into your next work. Maybe that’s the point after all?