Not too long ago I would become very distraught over the fact that something I took a great time to develop in writing or in my art didn’t garner the amount of attention that I thought it deserved through social media platforms. It made me want to quit and a few times I had to shut it all off because it had a tendency to be more a destructive force than something that was building me up.
I had quite a few audible credits at my disposal and I figured I should do something with them so I downloaded these three books. An audience of one by Srinivas Rao and the following two books by Steven Pressfield the war of art and nobody wants to read your sh*t. These three books changed my outlook on my art and gave me the resolve to keep being creative.
To be honest, I didn’t finish an Audience of one, it didn’t draw me in as much as other books have but a lesson early on was well worth the price of admission. When you tailor your art to what you think people are going to like you end up with something that you don’t like and more importantly others won’t like either. In other words, I’m writing things and taking pictures of things that I find interesting, hopefully, you feel the same way, and if not there are a couple hundred thousand or so other writers that might be a better fit for you. I’m not mad anymore I’m just trying to be me.
Art of war taught me something that I already knew but wasn’t smart enough to put into practice in this side of my life. If you want to get good at something you just have to sit down and do it. This was common sense to me when it came to building your personal health, I tell people all the time when they ask me how did you get so good at doing pull ups? “I did a lot of pull-ups.’ I’m not really certain why this truth I held dear never manifested itself into this side of my life but what’s important is that I’ve been writing almost every single day since I finished that book. I hope you see a difference.
and last but not least nobody wants to read your sh*t to paraphrase Mr. Pressfield, it’s not that they don’t care or are mean it’s just that they’re busy and they’ll actually have to take the time to read what you wrote and well who has time for that. This book helped me realize that If I want you to read my sh*t I need to make it clear, concise, and have some actual value so that one day after I write a ton of sh*t it might actually be good and worth reading.
This random cocktail of books has been very educational and more importantly set my artistic soul on fire. I hope that you enjoy my photos and sophomoric attempts at wisdom and humor through this blog I’m trying to get better by focusing on the things I like, I hope you enjoy them as well.
Subjects to change 