Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The Paradoxes of Life - People Admire Us When We Do Our Best for Ourselves

We all seek praise from our audiences. Most of us suffer anxieties to please our audiences.
Pic. Prarthana Nargundkar

But is all our work to please an audience? To please someone else? We create a little and then look up to see how the audience is reacting. If it is nodding we are pleased, like a puppy. If they are not too happy, we are sad. At every moment we are worried about what they think.Would that be how we get our best work done? Looking up every moment for their approval? Perhaps not. We would get some response to that, perhaps some praise, and a smattering of commercial success.

But would it be the best we can produce? My guess is that it would be a two dimensional work with no soul. It can bring on a nod. But it will never set the audiences' soul on fire.

Our best comes from deep within. It is something that only we can feel. It is something we do for ourselves without the confines of others' expectations. It is for us only and not for anyone else. It does not matter what they think of it.

It is between you and you. You and god. And as you create it, play it, write it and paint it, you find no need to look at the audience. You look at yourself. Is it good enough for you? If not, work some more, and more, until you cry. Until finally your heart smiles at it and you say 'that is me'. No praise in the world can be more fulsome, can make you happier than that feeling that you have pleased yourself. You, the greatest critic of them all.

These vague, undefined, unfettered works that transgress human understanding are what beauty is all about. It touches the heart deeply, the devotion, the courage, the flight, the thought. This is what makes people admire in other people, their art, their expression. This is real beauty. And it stays with you forever.
When it stays with you, it stays with the audience too.

When we please ourselves the most, the world is also pleased with us.

No comments: