I started this project several months ago, in May I think, and I play around whenever I feel inspired to create letterforms. The letters I'm posting now are old, not so much chronologically as psychologically and technically (in relation to my personal development as an image maker), and as I go through them now I feel underwhelmed by work that previously excited me. A challenge to the self: how do I treat these feelings?
Rationally, it makes sense older work isn't as "good" as newer work, but when I think about what I thought was "good" then, it makes me question my definition of "good" now. It's likely that my current work will be lackluster to what I'll be making in several months. There's a positive and negative here.
It's great that I'll be better in the future. Good, good, good; it means I'm consciously making an effort to improve, which is hard to gage over a short time, easier in lengthy chunks. The negative side of the experience is that I question the definition of "good," and ask myself how I can be happy with what I have if what I make later will be "better". The conundrum.
"Good" loses all objective meaning, then, when there is no limit to how good (or bad) a product can be. That leaves us with the subjective definition of good, which is, because of it's nature, merely relative to other work. And if the others can be infinitely better or worse we're back where we left off.
What do we do, then? How do we view our old work? What do we expect of our new work? It's a lot more fun to have questions than answers, so I'm not going to imagine or wish that there are solid solutions. Instead of judging ourselves let's simply appreciate our old work, understand that each product is a stone in the pavement to the present, and continue to lay stones to the future.
Agreed :).
ReplyDeleteExcellent thoughts Mr. Cofone.