Creativity Is Connection
Have you ever reached out to someone whose work you admire and gotten no response?
I’ve done this quite a bit and although I eagerly await their response at first, I’m always pleasantly relieved when I don’t hear back.
Why?
Because if they're communicating directly with me there’s a good chance that they’re communicating directly with a number of other people as well.
If they’re communicating directly with enough people there’s a good chance they have less time to do the work for which I admire them.
Almost paradoxically, if the energy put into connecting directly overtakes the energy put into doing their work, my desire to connect and interact with that person will disappear.
While we all matter as humans, the reality is that people feel connected to us because of the work we do. No one is cool enough to be able to just sit around all day and inspire people. No one gets flooded with praise for simply responding to messages. It’s the work that person has done that gives those messages value.
Our favorite authors aren’t our favorite authors because they respond to our DM’s, they’re our favorite authors because they write stories that matter to us.
While we might make one or two real friendships from the crazy world of comments and messages (I certainly have), the reality is that most of this interaction is a hamster wheel to nowhere. We’re trading our time, energy, and attention for a quick buzz at the expense of something much more important.
When people do work that matters deeply to us, it builds connection that goes beyond the dopamine hit we get from a simple message. The same is true for our work. When we do work that matters to other people, we have the potential to create true connection.
This is freedom. This is power. Power to put that phone down and stop chasing connection by spending all your time responding to dings, pings, and zaps, and start spending your time creating more thoughtful work.
We have our close friends and family to scratch our person to person connection itch. In most other cases we all benefit from realizing that creativity is connection.
P.S. Here’s the note I wrote that turned into this blog. It made me laugh and may very well be better than the actual blog so I’m sharing it with you. Maybe you’ll find it useful.
Creativity Is Connection: The inverse relationship between DM’s, inspiration, and connection.
Person makes work.
People are inspired by work.
People reach out to person to show appreciation.
Person feels obligated to respond (it feels nice to be appreciated).
People like it when person responds.
Person now spends more time responding than creating new work.
People stop reaching out because there’s nothing to appreciate.
Person realizes that creativity is connection.
Person makes work.