Creativity -> Things

Chase Jarvis recently talked (and has been talking) about creativity and the importance of just getting what you do out into the world, no matter how polished, deep or amazing it is. Eventually - at least according to him - that incremental creating of cool things eventually becomes sustainable.

At the start of writing this blog I was really concerned with the view-count on pictures and the traffic stats that would build up. Inevitably the first day after an upload I'd check the stats and get some satisfaction or dissapointment, depending on how things were trending. I got really emotionally invested in how many people saw what I did.

Which is natural when you create something. We should want what we create to be seen by all sorts of people; it's good for the work and it's good for you. But it shouldn't overshadow the work you do. It's unhealthy when checking popularity and page views takes the place of producing more work.

I've got no idea how many people read this blog or see my pictures. Actually that's a lie; I have a rough idea, but I find myself checking less and less. Eventually the workflow should become so fast that I don't have time to. In a perfect world.

As time goes on I find myself caring less and less about actual numbers and more about their feelings. One person being into what I do enough to talk to me about it is worth more than hundreds of thousands of faceless views. It's the back-and-forth sharing that's really worthwhile both personally and professionaly.