I haven't read the book, but that paragraph makes me think in all the artists that never did anything interesting, but were artists. It makes me think in all the artists that believed strongly that their work, and indeed their existence, was of the utmost importance, even if it wasn't.
This is not a rant, you need to believe in yourself to do art, you need to believe that your work is of the most upmost importance, otherwise you wouldn't be able to give in to it.
The problem is that, from the outside, that is not necessarily true, and often isn't.
I actually agree with the premise, I do need solitude to be creative. I don´t want to feel lonely, but I need to feel that my mind will not be perturbed at unexpected times, for unwelcome reasons. I just want to emphasize that calling ourselves artists is not making us any favors.
What does it matter if it's true? Many artists won't even know if it was true or not, because, for the many of the most revolutionary ones, the recognition only comes many years after their death. For others, it may never come, due to confluence of irrelevant factors (let's say they were writing in a very niche language). If the artist believe in what they're doing, whether or not people recognize it is secondary and not something they should worry about too much.
Re:Creativity requires solitude
by okumurahata on Friday August 26, 2022 @08:28AM
(#32606510)
This comment resonates with me. I'm currently working in a corporate environment, and I suffer every single second. I always fantasize about being a writer, programmer, producer, artist, no matter what, but where I reduce social interaction to zero.
In it he said:
"Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me — they’re shy and they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone — best outside of corporate environments, best where they can control an invention’s design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee… I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone... Not on a committee. Not on a team."