This morning on YouTube I watched Sean Tucker’s “The Artist’s Ego: Learning Balance.” I enjoy listening to his take on things; on life in general. Today he said that if you are always trying to please everybody you will actually reach no one “properly or effectively.” If you don’t put yourself out there in fear you will offend someone, that is the worst. I find myself very guilty of that. My blogging is a perfect example. I take all the time and effort to post, but then I don’t promote it. Well today I will, but I’m not sure about tomorrow.
As an artist of any kind, what we present is part of who we are. It makes us vulnerable, and no one wants to intentionally put themselves in that position. My last post touched on the need to promote yourself. Your ego is all part of that. It is a very delicate balance between letting your ego take over, and not allowing it to shine.
For me, I love to write, I love to share, I especially love to inspire someone. So I write, but if I don’t let people know it is here, why do it? Well there is the journaling side of it, I do get something out of the actual writing. But there is always that fear I will say something wrong. That I could offend someone. My stance on that is, I am greatly offended by the fact that so many people find things to be offended about.
Here is an example, a high school Christmas Program in the past would include singing songs like Jingle Bells, and Holy Night. Now it has to be a Holiday Program which includes no religious based songs. My father’s best friend was Jewish, we are not. But we celebrated Hanukkah with them, and they celebrated Christmas with us. It goes back to something my stepdaughter said to me years ago. She loved having two families because it gave her more people to love and love her.
Just as my stepdaughter has forgotten this, so has society. We are supposed to love thy neighbor. And yet we see constant violence. The biggest ego always has to be right. It doesn’t matter if they are or not. The confidence they have in themselves makes them believable.
In talking about constructive criticism, we again find the big egos telling the new photographers what they are doing wrong. We pass it off as art is subjective. But that person with all the accolades will often think that gives them the right to pass judgement, when it is really just an opinion.
What all this boils down to is that ego, that self-worth, that need to be right. I will be the first to say I don’t have the answers, but I do know that I need to ask the questions. What makes me have to be right? What right do I have to say you are wrong? My ego will not be able to give me a truthful answer. So I will listen to my heart instead.
I was going to end this post with the last paragraph. But instead here is a little test. Here is a photo I took of an old camera I have. Was this photo shot in RAW or jpg? Is it ‘technically’ correct? Is it straight out of the camera, or edited? Or does it really matter?
Who is the judge?