I am carving out some time this week to do reading for the good of myself and for business. To be honest, I am thinking about my next steps and projects – the planning for 2015.
One of the books I am reading is “Becoming Enlightened” – translations of the Dalai Lama’s teachings. One of the main teachings is about how we are all connected and there really isn’t a “self” in the sense that we have created one to be. What we do affects other people. How we treat ourselves affects other people. What other people do can affect us as well. This is why the consideration “for the benefit of all” is best to have as part of the planning process for everything that we do.
You may not believe in karma, but we do live in a world of cause and effect. What we do causes something to happen and this will affect us and other people concerned.
How does all of this translate to the arts? I have been thinking a great deal about this for myself and for you. You see, we will know if we are on the right path if what we do is for the benefit of all concerned. We will know when the arts have become important to everyone when it truly is at least perceived as benefiting everyone, including ourselves.
This is the main reason why creating art in a “self” vacuum does not work most of the time. Art creates a cause and effect scenario. If it is only beneficial for the artist, and not for other people, it will not receive enough support. We can then apply this logic to the bigger picture, arts advocacy and audience building. If we want people to support the arts, we do need to create art that is beneficial to other people.
It will either be a case of considering yourself too much in the equation or not enough. You can go overboard either way. Thinking of only your audiences will not make an artist happy, but not thinking about your audiences at all, same unhappy ending.
In simpler terms, if you are struggling, you are probably not on the right path. You might need a little tweak here and there, find the right balance of yourself and audiences, to get on the right path.
Being on the right path means it is of benefit to yourself and other people – for the benefit of all.
Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,
Shoshana
Shoshana Fanizza
Chief Audience Builder
