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What I've learned by jonas
Younger/aspiring artists sometimes ask me for advice regarding creativity and making art, and I wanted to attempt to distill down my advice into a (semi) concise format. So I wrote a little piece on creativity, doubt, the brain, stuff like that. It's here if you want to read it:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-3YkpFaZB5-gigQw8WlnaDMfOg13PVPiGgClAJD1IWw/edit?usp=sharing
I know it's in need of work, and I'm admittedly not a very good writer, so feedback is appreciated, but I wanted to just noodle it all out in a working draft. Let me know what you think. (If you think I'm full of shit, do not hesitate to say so. Be constructive if possible, but nonetheless please do leave a comment.)
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I certainly could get cold and empirical about it. I certainly have that side to myself, and there's a ton of raw data I could quote regarding the actual neurochemical and EEG stuff involved. Fundamentally, however, I don't think that's of much help to the majority of artists out there. Many approach the craft from more holistic, emotional, instinctual paths, and I thought it'd be better to come up with something of a synthesis, something that everybody(?) can relate to. (Maybe?)
There is something of a dichotomy between art and the sciences, although it's not as hard-bounded or as impassable as it might seem. Art is still an exploration of the same material world that science studies, and there are some "constants" and "fundamental forces" in art, mainly defined in this case by the limitations and parameters of human perception & cognition.
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Will read this later
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Thanks for posting this. It was a good read.
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CodeSquirrel
I admit coming to this with a rather cynical attitude, but I can also happily say that it's nowhere near as "cold and hard and empirical" as I thought it was gonna be. I was kind of expecting a cold hard psych whitepaper on how confidence and creativity/spontaneity are stimulated/processed in the brain from the brief description (and my cynical/depressed mood), but instead got a far "warmer" and much more human-level discussion about overcoming self-doubt and believing in oneself. :P
I think the only problem I can find is that…it doesn't particularly work for people like me who feel like the only two options are "pander to everyone else and base your confidence on how 'objectively good' you think your art will be to others" and "just do whatever and to hell with literally anything anyone else has to say about it"…I kind of tend to distill things down into binary options like that (there's a code/computer joke in there somewhere :B).
Also, I liked your note about your "fundamental" character. That's actually another aspect of my own lack of confidence; I feel like I'm better at techie/computery things than I am at art. At the same time, though, I feel like there's this hard dichotomy between the two and that if I focus too much on one that I'll start to lose the other because neuroplasticity or some other excuse like that ("jack of all trades but master of none", etc. :/).
Anyways I'mma wrap this up, as it's become longer than the journal entry itself, and I've been writing it on my phone, no less… xD