The ego and Creativity

I've been thinking a lot about the ego recently and more specifically its effects on my goals, aspirations and art.

I've come to the conclusion that my ego, and by ego I am referring to a desire for self importance and the adulation and respect of external entities is the single biggest obstacle between me, my creative aspirations and general happiness.

This conclusion has been a big driver for me in the last year or so and has had a profound impact on the direction I have steered my life in.

This was one of the primary reasons I gave up trying to make music for a living. When I was trying to make a go of making music my money-earner I became increasingly stressed about making sellable music. At the same time I was also worried about the quantity of my output. Both of these stresses had an adverse impact on my creativity, which took a nosedive. As soon as I made music my hobby, the stresses went away and I found myself a happier person as a result.

I see creative people around me that are struggling to do their best art because of the stresses to make a living and I can only see this situation as counter-productive.

I also see some creative people's desire for their work to be liked by everyone as a destructive force in their creativity. For gods sake, just do good art, enjoy it. Preach to a niche, if you put yourself into the work, someone will like it. However it might not make you any money and so might not be a way to make a living.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule everywhere. Most of the music I like is by people who have removed most of the 'ego' from their work, are amazingly honest and still make a living from it. I think those people are in the minority. I admire their tenacity to get to where they are. I Guess I'm just saying that I don't want to have that battle. I've got so many diverse interests in my life and many of them will bring me a far better quality of life If I pursue them as career options than music so that's what I've chosen to do. It doesn't mean music isn't as important as it once was, indeed I enjoy it more now that I'm freed of the trappings of the music business and the ego sink holes that reside there.