When people create false needs in society in order to sell products, the audience is presented with an augmented model of success to aim for, themselves, which distorts their natural aspirations on mass. They quickly feel they have to emulate these behaviours to be well regarded against this new yardstick of adequacy... But as they join forces with those creating the original products, they do so out of social pressure rather than actual ability, so that their inferior skills lead to the degradation and ultimate destruction of the entire enterprise over time. [The Portal Effect].
Genuine creativity is a natural part of our behaviour and a defining mode of communication that is incredibly important to preserve. Modern art however, that focuses on commercial success - doesn't function in this way because it seeks to take [profit] rather than to give [provoke, communicate, ask]. In bowing to existing markets, the commercial artist is giving the audience more of what they already know they like... The job of a genuine artist, however, is to deliver what the audience actually needs and don't know how to get for themselves - if they did know, they wouldn't need the artist to deliver it. A commercial artist is therefore a manufacturer of manipulative cultural widgets - and from here on in this article, the word "art" will refer to this useless brand of commercial activity.
Given that the masses are not natural commercial artists, and given that the lives of these artists are falsely marketed as joyous and materially rewarding – most people’s attempts in this field, fall short of their expectations. What commits them to the process of continual striving for success though, is the fact that their natural social capital - their health and usefulness - has been made to seem less important by the imposition of these new false ideals that elevate the notion of also having to "be cultured."
Then the corporate interest that made up this initial market, wastes no time in capitalising again on the fact that now everyone wants to be an artist. They do this with the lie that – “everyone can” – because Pollock and Stockhausen were famous, weren’t they? And they weren’t really that skilled… the things they created were just crude imitations of naturally occurring disorder – and any idiot can do that, even you! Then because the sexual market is a matter of survival – it becomes vital that we all share in the collusion that regards the untalented as brilliant - so that ultimately – there’s still hope for every one of us.
And so what happened to the media - has happened to art. The broadcast-technology that created a false need in society for mass-approval - eventually led to the invention of social media that now allows all of us to pursue that. Art has been similarly democratised so that the best artists now are really the best sales-people, and the caliber of a professional artist's work is about the same as our own would be, should we attempt it. And we probably will - everyone's got a novel in them, right? Well, everyone's got a novel in their life STORY, but most of us are about as able to present it well in novel form as we would be able to turn it into an opera. Everyone's got a novel in them - is just the sales copy for those educational courses and self-publishing platforms that've sprung up to meet the new need we have to appear as though we're creative.
As we pen these pitiful missives to a culture that doesn't love us for us - we degrade the novel-form until it changes for the worse and not the better. You can hear the same in popular music... that everything is three minutes long, in a 4/4 time signature and with a verse, chorus structure - and that it can all be mixed together and still sound about the same - is undeniable proof - those in the creative arts are no freer than factory workers.
With time, it becomes clear that actually, this new democratic republic of art, really lacks a lot of… skill... and passion… isn’t the hidden soul of humanity - and is actually a totalitarian state of industry… Then the only currency left – and the next place the corporate interest sets in is – grievance. It's just another sales tactic - and a good one at that - "If you won't buy my art because it resonates with you... and if you won't buy my art because others tell you it'll make you look knowledgeable - then buy my art, because you're socially obligated to", "Buy my art to alleviate the guilt I'm suggesting you should personally feel", "Buy my art to fix your privilege."
Conclusion...
The young should aspire only to doing that which they're truly driven to do. This requires a personal inventory that acknowledges our Universal human need to be useful to others. A great joy will be if that thing is a trade required by others - carpentry, plumbing, dentistry, running a shop, and so on. A great burden of responsibility will be if that thing is Art - genuine Art. The artistic impulse has a relationship with trauma - it often comes from a circumstance that pushed the individual in youth outside the usual template of social intercourse - and back into more abstract and mystical modes of expression. If you know you're an artist, then you may be a very positive force who can create work that reunites others with their own true nature... But just engage in it for yourself alone, find as much space for it in your life as you're happy to give - and don't give more than that - and don't invest emotionally in its commercial success.
Some people want to make an impact in society, but the price of increasing your chances of this, is that the impact will need to be a commercial one - which is ultimately no impact at all - so never be fooled by those artists who appear more "successful" than others. Furthermore, should you label yourself a commercial artist, a knowing maker of widgets - your impact will in fact be negative, as this activity accelerates our collective amnesia about what real art is and has us dwelling instead inside a necropolis of industrial artifacts.
Do the work that seems meaningful and useful to you and seek approval from others only through the way you relate to them and serve the needs they have. One secondary goal of real artists (for the first is simply to alleviate the pain that comes from not being creative) is that their work finds an audience who are helped by it. But that's a very hands off process and the artist's primary concern should simply be that they're expressing their truth. For art to be helpful, it must be based in some kind of truth - which is why it's generally more visible to those in some state of social isolation, or to those who are naturally uneasy with the artifice of modernity.