I don’t have time for this.
It sounds a lot better when you say instead.
I have made a decision not to invest time in this.
That is a more honest thing to say. It also shows awareness and determination. It denotes you are in control of how you spend your day and it holds you responsible for the things your are not doing.
Time is not an entity we can control. What we do with it, instead, is something we can learn to master.
Art is about creating content that is meaningful primarily to you, as it is an expression of your inner world. Of course, art can have a market. That happens when the expression of your inner world resonates with someone else’s inner world. That is not its main purpose though.
Craft is about creating content that is meaningful primarily to an audience, as it is an expression of a common world view. Of course, craft can be artistic. That happens when the expression of the common world view is so peculiar that it clearly stands out among similar other expressions. Again, that is not its main purpose.
There is space for both art and craft in the world, and both paths are available to most people.
You just need to be aware of where you stand.
A good rule of thumb: if you can deliver work through consecutive iterations, reaching a point where the work does not look like something you would have created yourself, and still be working to smooth the corners and be proud of the final results, you are most likely a crafter.
Today, I write my blog post number 1,000.
1,000 days of writing every day. Almost three years since I have decided to give it another try.
And one thing has become more and more clear during this time. The end goal is the act of writing itself. It is not the views – for those, I am grateful. It is not the likes – by those, I am humbled. It is the sitting down in front of the screen every evening, no matter where I happen to be, no matter the kind of day I had, no matter whether I know what I will write about or not. It is the habit. It is the doing.
We need habits. And we need to go back to choosing the ones we dedicate time to.
Imagine this.
Most texts on writing style encourage authors to avoid overly-complex words. However, a majority of undergraduates admit to deliberately increasing the complexity of their vocabulary so as to give the impression of intelligence.
As this.
Most texts on writing style encourage authors to avoid overly-complex words. However, a majority of corporate websites deliberately increase the complexity of their vocabulary so as to give the impression of expertise.
The paper introduced by the first text found that students using more difficult words actually end up giving the exact opposite impression: “needless complexity leads to negative evaluation”.
Using a very non-scientific method, I’d like to extend the findings to the situation I made up in the second text.
Nobody likes to feel dumb.
There is value in staying with what makes you uncomfortable.
You get stronger, you understand more, you settle. Staying is a learning experience. It is by staying that eventually you begin to manage situations that initially seemed insurmountable.
Of course, staying is also a huge stress.
So pick a few things that matter, and stay.
You've got this 