When I’m trying to become skillful in something, I often face a choice about whether to produce better output, or whether to bring my actions more in-line with my soul.
For instance, sometimes when I’m practicing a song on the guitar, I will sing it in a way where the words feel true to me.
And sometimes, I will think about the audience, and play in a way that is reliably a good experience for them (clear melody, reliable beat, not too irregular changes in my register, not moving in a way that is distracting, etc).
Something I just noticed is that it is sometimes unclear whether I am attempting the first thing and succeeding, or attempting the second thing and failing. Am I currently trying to make the song fit my persona better and experimenting there, or am I trying to do something I think a small audience will find aesthetically satisfying but getting it wrong?
I think periods of sounding unaesthetic to others is, for most people and most skills, required in becoming skillful at something aesthetic. One mistake is never doing things that are unaesthetic, and another mistake is thinking you should only do things that fit your aesthetic and not care about others’. My current guess is that most great art hits both.
I think the same is true of other endeavors. In writing, sometimes I write in ways that are less clear, or seem odd to a particular audience, but I am attempting to speak more true to myself. And sometimes I’m trying to write clearly and well, but am not practiced and my output is mediocre. I suspect it is hard from the outside to tell which is going on, and I know sometimes it is hard from the inside to tell.
When I’m trying to become skillful in something, I often face a choice about whether to produce better output, or whether to bring my actions more in-line with my soul.
For instance, sometimes when I’m practicing a song on the guitar, I will sing it in a way where the words feel true to me.
And sometimes, I will think about the audience, and play in a way that is reliably a good experience for them (clear melody, reliable beat, not too irregular changes in my register, not moving in a way that is distracting, etc).
Something I just noticed is that it is sometimes unclear whether I am attempting the first thing and succeeding, or attempting the second thing and failing. Am I currently trying to make the song fit my persona better and experimenting there, or am I trying to do something I think a small audience will find aesthetically satisfying but getting it wrong?
I think periods of sounding unaesthetic to others is, for most people and most skills, required in becoming skillful at something aesthetic. One mistake is never doing things that are unaesthetic, and another mistake is thinking you should only do things that fit your aesthetic and not care about others’. My current guess is that most great art hits both.
I think the same is true of other endeavors. In writing, sometimes I write in ways that are less clear, or seem odd to a particular audience, but I am attempting to speak more true to myself. And sometimes I’m trying to write clearly and well, but am not practiced and my output is mediocre. I suspect it is hard from the outside to tell which is going on, and I know sometimes it is hard from the inside to tell.