What is it about likes?

Almost every artist throughout history has had to deal with some negative reception of their art, but today in the digital world, the artist has to deal with a never-ending influx of opinions whether silent or loud.

If your sense of being is dictated by external opinions then you’ll never create your magnum opus. And I believe you are required to create this Great Work. In fact, it is your duty to the cosmos.

This is why I don’t think you should build a personal brand. Everything you create has to be deeply impersonal. It has to be so impersonal that it becomes transpersonal.

And no, it has nothing to do with the current cultural connotation.

Transpersonal is defined as “experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos.”

When you create from a transpersonal space, the “me” who is creating dissolves into nothing and everything. Perhaps then, there is no one there to judge or be judged by. When the “me” is gone, only the content remains.

So the person behind the content has to die.

Psychologically die.

I think this is the only way forward. The only way we can have a world filled with unfazed artists. Artists who can create and be destroyed relentlessly without tainting the soul of the art.

I love Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain but maybe you don’t. Maybe you don’t think it is artistic at all. And that is okay. Since of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Personally, I feel the Fountain symbolizes a playful f*ck you to the gatekeepers.

Who are those gatekeepers?

Our own egos.

Our own sense of perfectionism.

Our own boundaries and limitations.

It’s the “me”.

The “me” is the gatekeeper.

When you lose the “me” there is no one to stop you. You create whatever you want without hesitation.

And the best part?

You don give a f*ck about what other “me’s” think.

Like your own art.

And remember, it’s never about being “good” or “bad".

It always boils down to whether it’s “real” or “unreal”.

So be real.

The Good emerges from the Real.