What's Worth Making?

The internet is saturated with the very best.

The most beautiful photos, the catchiest music, the most pristinely edited videos. 

More so than this however, it’s saturated with stuff that really isn’t so good. 

Most videos on YouTube get next to no views, there are over 4 million songs on Spotify that have never been listened to - most online creations are, in a sense, an act of futility.

It feels all the worse when one looks at articles and videos online which feel akin to fast food - clickbaity, vacuous, and exceedingly popular. Compared with other types of content which have clearly had a lot of heart and soul poured into them, it can sometimes feel depressing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do. What I want to make, what’s worth making? What’s worth sharing?

Does the internet need another sketch? Film essay? Vlog? What’s the point? Isn’t there enough already?

There are lots of opinions on this. Here are a few I’ve found insightful:

Derek Sivers wrote, in Hell Yeah or No, the following:

Art is useless, and so am I. Art is useless by definition. If it was useful, it would be a tool. For the past twenty years, I was obsessed with being useful. That one measure drove all of my daily decisions: “How can I be the most useful to the most people today?” That question served me well but had its downsides. It kept me from playing and doing things just for me. It’s no coincidence that I stopped making music twenty years ago. It didn’t qualify as the most useful thing I could be doing.

Sivers deliberately tries to be provocative in his writing - by his own admission - at going against the popular grain of what is accepted. In that, it feels obvious that this can’t be the entire picture. In some sense, art helps give life meaning, and there is a deep purpose to that.  

The Writer Kurt Vonnegut had something to say on this too. In 2006 he wrote to Xavier School in New York after they had invited him to speak. He declined the offer, but set them a homework assignment: 

“Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!”

So maybe art is worth making because it helps our soul grow? We don’t need an audience, the work is its own reward?

Which again, feels like a great but incomplete answer. Why throw away a good poem?

The answer I’ve settled on for now is that art is a gift. Sometimes it’s for you, or for others, or indeed, sometimes you don’t know who it’s for until you’re done making it.

So then we can answer the question of what’s worth making - everything.

All art is worth making. Be generous.

We’re in the luxurious time now where we need not fear running out of paper or ink. You do not detract from someone else’s ability to share by sharing your work. There is now an almost infinite space for art. 

So go crazy. Be generous.

And if it feels futile, remember, It is only through the bad pieces that we get to the good ones.

I wrote this for me, as a reminder. But maybe it’s for you too.