Greatness

See the book: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

 Imagine going to live on a mountaintop by yourself, forever. You build a home that no one will ever visit. Still, you invest the time and effort to shape the space in which you’ll spend your days.
 The wood, the plates, the pillows—all magnificent. Curated to your taste.
 This is the essence of great art. We make it for no other purpose than creating our version of the beautiful, bringing all of ourself to every project, whatever its parameters and constraints. Consider it an offering, a devotional act. We do the best, as we see the best—with our own taste. No one else’s.
 We create our art so we may inhabit it ourselves.
 Measurement of greatness is subjective, like art itself. There is no hard metric. We are performing for an audience of one.
 If you think, “I don’t like it but someone else will, you are not making art for yourself. You’ve found yourself in the business of commerce, which is fine; it just may not be art. There’s no bright line between the two. The more formulaic your creation is, the more it hugs the shore of what’s been popular, the less like art it’s likely to be. And in fact, creativity in that spirit often fails even at its own goals. There is no more valid metric to predict what someone else might enjoy than us liking it ourselves.
 Fear of criticism. Attachment to a commercial result. Competing with past work. Time and resource constraints. The aspiration of wanting to change the world. And any story beyond “I want to make the best thing I can make, whatever it is” are all undermining forces in the quest for greatness.
 Instead of focusing on what making this will bring you, focus on what you contribute to this art to make it the best it could possibly be, with no limitation.
 If you’re creating something with a solely functional purpose, such as a car designed to reach a certain top speed, other intentions may matter. If your project is purely artistic, then redirect your inner voice to focus on pure creative intent.
 With the objective of simply doing great work, a ripple effect occurs. A bar is set for everything you do, which may not only lift your work to new heights, but raise the vibration of your entire life. It may even inspire others to do their best work. Greatness begets greatness. It’s infectious.