Fear. Sometimes rational, sometimes not. What I’m concerned with is when it stops people from accomplishing amazing things. More specifically, what’s stopping me from creating things to share online these days?
Some questions that float through my mind:
“What if no one likes it?”
“What if no one sees it?”
“Am I making something worth creating?”
It sort of reminds me of the saying “If a tree falls in the forrest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. So if content is created, and no one is around to consume it, does the content exist?
There is the romantic idea of creating things without the need for others to validate it. Art for the sake of art, and that being satisfying on its own. Although it begs another question. Why share the work if you don’t care if people see it or like it? There has to be some part of a person that wants the work to be seen if they’re bothering to put it out into the world at all.
Vivian Maier is the closest I can think of to creating something for their own interest first and not being bothered with putting it out into the world. She obsessively practiced and mastered street photography and hoarded it for her own keeping. That said, it was discovered that she did attempt to share her work once in Paris, so even she wanted her work to be seen on some level. We’ll never know how much she wanted the work to be seen since she passed away before her work was discovered.
We live in a new landscape where the sharing of content is over saturated. There are so many voices out there screaming for attention. Additionally, it’s an expectation to share our lives, whether we are personally attracted to doing so or not. It’s come down to share or be irrelevent, even if your job or career has nothing to do with being a writer, videographer, or photographer.
So not only am I competing with professional writers, videographers, and photographers, I’m competing with the general public sharing willingly or otherwise the same sort of content. This brings me back to my thought of what’s the point.
My fear specifically stems from not being sure my work will get out there even if it’s well made. Even if I make something truly brilliant, mind blowing, and top of it’s game, it still may not get out there.
This needs to stop. I’m taking a page out of Vivian Maiers book, and making the work anyway.
