Meaning in the Eye of the Beholder

I am naturally an extrovert. I thrive around people, being social, being active, interacting and engaging with my surroundings and all that surrounds me!

I love to host, I love to bring people out of their shells, I love to be the first one on the dance floor, sharing my creativity and inspiring others to do the same. I love to hear what other people are passionate about – honestly I don’t think there is a subject on this earth that could bore me if the person sharing it was passionate!

I’ve always just loved bringing that kind of excitement out in a person, the kind that only comes when someone really gets or shows an interest and gives you their attention like you and what you love are actually worth something!

Too often, I feel, that is overlooked. We are either trying too hard too get it noticed by the “right people” that we don’t think to just share it naturally, OR we are too scared of sharing it with the “wrong people” and being mocked or made to feel embarrassed or ashamed of what we love most that we just don’t share it at all.

Perfection must come before engagement. One must be an expert before they decide to display their craft for fear of being caught out.

Me I have many an interest in many a thing – and did I mention that I am just a naturally passionate person, I know, I know, what a surprise! – yet I do not claim to be an expert on much. I’m just a derp finding her kind of enjoyment in the things that make her giddy and filled up with the good stuff!

I love music yet I would never claim to be an expert on it or any one I listen to for that matter! I’m not nor have I ever been one of those kinds of fans that has to know and follow everything. I’ve never been particularly obsessive when it comes to that type of thing – my OCD’s come out it other ways – but hey god bless that kind of applied knowledge! It’s just not in my own genetic makeup! I prefer to listen and let inspire. I prefer to paint my own inspired portrait of theme. I like music because it stirs something inside of me, and I don’t necessarily want to disrupt that feeling with the knowledge of its reality. I respect the musicians and their stories and inspiration, just like I would want any reader of my work to respect me and mine, but I think we put our art out to invoke reaction and feeling, to be interpreted by the consumer from a personal perspective outside of our own intention.

The most important thing as a creator is that your work is inspiring something outside of yourself. It’s touching something inside those who experience it and that’s more important than exact conception…at least I think so.

It’s fun hearing differentiating observations and interpretations from a multitude of varying perspectives. It’s fun to debate meaning and challenge your own point of view with another’s.

I mean I’m a pretty perceptive person but there are times when someone catches something that managed to go over my head and changes the trajectory of a theory completely!

This is what creates community among fans and generate even more creativity. Part of why I love to write is because I want to inspire that kind of unorthodox thinking, to set a spark and see what kind of fire it ignites in another. To challenge conventional thought and motivate others to do the same, to take it a step further, to spin their own conspiracies, suppositions, and speculations.

When I have anyone reads my work what I want them to come back with is observation and opinion. What did it make you think? How did it make you feel? Not only because yes you want the general sentiment of what you were going for with a scene to come through – I mean who wants a tragic scene to come off as a tragedy? This either tells you something about your writing or your reading and neither interpretation would be particularly warming…- but you also want to see what else it generates within the readers own imagination, how it resonates and reflects to them.

Let’s face it we all come from a place of personal. All we really have to go on is our own experience, our own intuition, memory, reactions, feeling, perspective, etc. It’s true that some are more intuitive then others and better able to read and gauge another’s personal response, but it is still based in the cerebral self. We can never truly know what sad feels like to another, what invokes that particular reaction for them, what other emotions its provocation might stir within.

Therefore every new reader is a new impact to be made. A new way for your work to inspire, to engage, and be considered.

When creating you are reaching out and touching more than a whole, more than a sum, you are touching individuals, and each and every one has their own story to tell through the invocation of yours!

So never underestimate the power of your own impression and before throwing the age old artist tantrum of “they just don’t get me!” take the time to listen for one persons seemingly wayward interpretation of your work, their out there theory, or roundabout translation may prove to be the most flattering reciprocation your work could hope to influence because when passion begets passion magic happens and your creative world begins to expand.

Creativity is bigger then the creator, we are just vessels meant to carry a message to inspire and to generate more creativity. To bring play and imagination into lives that would have us forget. That’s why our hearts bleed to tell the stories through the medium best suited to our desires. Because we were once inspired too, something touched our hearts and minds with meaning we alone decided to translate into our own.

Creativity isn’t meant to exist alone. Isn’t meant to be controlled. It is to expand, to reach out, and build. It is passion personified.

It is me, it is you, and ever always in the eye of the beholder to carry on.