Share Your Art —Document your Journey like an Amateur!
We are all artists in some way, producing something that requires craftsmanship, and the best way to learn, to keep the passion for what you do alive is by projecting the value of what you do, your thoughts on the outside world — achievable by sharing your process and what you learn, do.
Why though?
I do not have an answer to that which perhaps can be generalized to most of us, but from my perspective it brings about more clarity about what you do, and at a personal level it gives a control over how much relevant/ visible you want it to be to others, whatever is it that you are producing.
- Journaling your life is not a new idea, “deary diary” is something everyone is familiar with, and perhaps for most of us that was the our first experiment with getting to know our thoughts better.
- Sharing multiple aspects of your life, a hundred different dimensions in which your mind oscillates, what processes do you identify yourself with is another way of getting to know yourself better.
- And there are a lot of us like you, someone someday might stumble upon a phrase, an idea that could be worth much more it would have been in just your drafts.
How? — Let them find you.
There would be people who are searching for material related to something that you are producing, so in order for them to find you, all you need to do is just to put it out there, without the worrying about whether the stuff whether it’s perfect/ imperfect, polished or not, or what opinion other people would have about it, Why — because you are not a master, you are an “amateur” (one who’s a lover of .. ) — Those who love their art, are passionate about learning new things about it and themselves.
- Start sharing “bits n pieces” of your work (process essentially) every day.
- Like making a video of yourself everyday, a 1 min thing turns into a 365 min video for the year.
- Documenting everything is like making a memory for yourself, whatever you like in a particular moment, what your thoughts were at that point in time.
- Learning something new? — Teach it to the world, break it down for others, make it easier for the community. (just don’t call yourself a f-ing influencer/ guru)
These artists acknowledge that good work isn’t created in a vacuum, and that the experience of art is always a two-way street, incomplete without feedback. — Austin Kleon
- Acknowledge constructive feedback — the most organic way for an artist to grow, perhaps even spiritually (you learn to be humble that’s all).
Does the model work?
Coming from an engineer’s perspective on it— it’s far more easier to understand what you are doing when you have documented it, the design becomes readable, the solution looks that much more tangible.
Similarly in life, we follow a process with a goal of eventual happiness in every thing we do, to get a sense of satisfaction. Now to understand whether what we are doing is actually giving us the end result we must better understand the process we are following, and documentation is a way of achieving just that. Having others review your work is the best form of feedback you can get, and especially as it’s much more easier in this networking age.
So do it, share away! (I will warm up to it as well…hopes!) #GetRidOfTheDrafts
Results?
I personally find a compulsion to write everything down in as generic and as bucketized way possible, re-organizing the little details, putting similar thoughts under the same #hashtag (which eventually feeds to overthing and anxiety). But that is like a process I don’t think I will ever be able to master.
So instead of waiting on the right moment to share whatever finished goods we think we could produce, let’s all just share the process, maybe for people like us, who like to stay organized and follow a routine, this model can be helpful, bring about some clarity and keep the anxiety at bay.
Hope it helps someone, let me know your thoughts! :)
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References —
** Very important when you share something that was inspired by others’ works!! (Plagiarism is bad, I have had a few personal experiences :D)
