Create for an audience of one (first)

I’ve been involved in many creative projects in my life. Some have seen the light of day, many have sputtered and failed to go anywhere, and some have turned into success.

Looking back, I can see a pattern of when I was creating for myself and when I was trying to please some amorphous audience. There’s nothing inherently wrong with trying to create for an audience, but it feels like the sort of endeavor that would lead to burnout. If you aren’t pleased, first and foremost, with what you are creating and putting out into the world, what’s the point?

Since we’ll be kicking off a summer reading of Montaigne’s Essays in a couple weeks, I thought this passage on how to focus on creating for yourself was relevant for today’s Daily Note. (Italics mine)

Let your public be just one person or indeed let it be your own self…You should stop caring about how people talk about you, and care only about how you should talk to yourself. Withdraw into yourself but first prepare a welcome in the place where you will be received. It would be folly to put your fate in your own hands if you cannot govern yourself. A man may fail when he is alone as easily as he does when surrounded by others. Until such time as you succeed in becoming the kind of man in whose presence you would not like to slip up and blunder, and not before you have learnt to feel ashamed but also to respect yourself.

— Michel De Montaigne