Chasing validation from others is the best recipe for a creative failure.
"Done a lot of post-game talking but this one is different"
How do we even define validation in an era where every interaction is flattened to the smallest possible version of it? Almost to the atomic level of it? Can we still look up to others when we know what the industry looks like, or at least that we were led from the jump to believe a different version of it - maybe the one on those great early 2000s animated TV shows, all pointing to one thing through these characters: V A L I D A T I O N.
We were primed from the beginning of time to see and register others’ acceptance as the missing piece in our successful endeavors - for what reason? Being part of the pack? Social hierarchies? Stick with us right now, as we sip on some rosé having just hit 50k followers on IG. A journey of 568 days, consistent, daily.
When we choose to assign so much meaning to the opportunity of being acknowledged by people that there is a great chance we have never met before, or we met but are not that close | at least not close enough to a point where we really know each other | we risk stopping our work and having it go stale just because of those reasons, the ones that are tied to the game we all play, and how each one is trying to advance in it to satisfy their needs in this ever-growing creative sphere. We don’t blame anybody, but at the same time, we don’t want to look back two years from now and ask ourselves why we never started that project.
Beyond that, validation is bound to change - and sometimes within a matter of days and minutes. Because if you think about it on a deep enough level, anyone can be disappointed by something you make and decide to stop rocking with you. And in that sense, if your confidence and sense of self-worth and approval were tied to them, you're practically left with nothing. Assuming you haven't detached from it and spent enough time to realize that the fact is: validation is a construct of society, at the end of the day.
Then, of course, rules are meant to be broken; figuratively speaking. Instead of seeking validation, we should seek self-approval first. Only then can we start assigning value to others’ opinions, because our foundation is strong enough to distinguish between the many ways that words, sentences, and opinions can come through; guarding ourselves from swaying our work toward a direction we never wanted it to go, and perhaps never intended.
We keep coming back to that point: make art for yourself first, and after that everything will fall into place, because it is authentic. It’s almost like if you try to make something perfect, you’ll end up with something that isn’t yours! (shoutout Virgil for that.) Did you catch that? Not yours. So if it’s not yours, any validation doesn’t matter, because at its roots it doesn’t apply to you or reflect what you actually have going on. There is no purpose in it.
At the end of the day, momentum creates the ultimate validation- because inner validation is worth more than you can imagine, and most definitely more than outer validation, at any day, hour, minute, second, season, and lifetime.
Make that project. The world needs it.
The Mercer Edition Is An Independent Publication.