Creative Fuel And Endurance
Stamina >> Talent
There’s a collective well of creativity that everyone draws from.
In some ways it’s what Jung called the collective conscious.
A mix of whatever is popular at the moment that also resonates with you.
Originality is the sum of our artistic influences, plus the x-factor that only you can bring to this aggregate.
This X-factor compels us to seek The Edge.
The thing that no one is looking at and could mix well with your thing, and could make you stand out as one of a kind.
The only way to know how this will mix is to run the remix experiment and see what comes out.
For the purpose of establishing a visual measure, this is what the hit-to-miss ratio will look like.
And sometimes a creator goes too far in their quest to be the most original, and in doing so they risk alienating a large part of the audience.
And a visual representation of this chance is…
You remix experiment landed you on the fringe. You’re too much the alien.
And sometimes the end result is too common.
The rare, cool thing you found disappeared in the remix experiment. You landed in the average art of the board. What you made gets lost in the sea of the average that dominates the media.
And this one is represented visually as…
But sometimes you strike that rare combination of common and edgy that connects with a large audience and with the self-appointed gatekeepers of what is good taste.
It’s rare enough to draw criticism, but not so rare that it goes into the uncanny valley of cool, where it loses the unconscious support of the masses.
You hit that middle ground that is represented visually as…
And you can nail this unmeasurable combo the first time out, or after a few iterations that take you back to the remix lab for every new thing that you make.
Endurance.
The other X-factor in the formula for originality.
The endurance to try again after the thing you made didn’t connect.
The endurance to continue creating when the critics (trolls/haters) drown out the tiny voices of support and well-meaning people that keep telling you do the other thing instead.
I love Metallica, but my love for them rarely goes past Ride The Lighting and Master of Puppets albums.
In both albums there is a hunger to improve, to make something better than their previous best, which translated into reaching more listeners, into playing in larger venues.
But the rest of my admiration for Metallica is their sheer attitude.
Their toughness as recording artists.
Against limited resources, against critics, against equipment theft, against the tragic loss of one key member of the band, against the refusal of radio to play their music, against the friction brought on by Bob Rock when he came aboard to record the Black Album, against a changing culture, savage critics and another band member walking away from Metallica, they endured.
They kept finding a way to keep going.
Something that they still do, if not in their musical output, then in giving the fans a new way to experience Metallica live, using the latest tech to make their live shows awesome.
So, which comes first? The chicken or the egg?
Talent or endurance first?