What Bitterness Does To Writers And Artists
It is often hard to not give into bitterness as a creative.
When you post something and no one responds, but then someone else posts something identical and it gets treated like gold…
When you put effort into making a video and it gets 5 views, but someone just does a quick, “remember to love yourself besties” reel and it gets 5,000 views and 100 likes…
When you write and write, but the person writing about making money on writing gets more attention than you ever had…
This is when I sense bitterness creep up in me. I don’t feel it when someone is visibly better than me. When I read work that blows me away, I rejoice. I like having my intellect moved, my soul moved. In fact I search it out.
But when the algo favors someone, I feel that bitterness creep up. Do you ever feel that?
Here is the thing: You cannot allow bitterness to get the upper hand. In this article I wrote about the effect of spite on the soul.
There are higher level thoughts and lower level thoughts. There are higher level emotions, and lower level emotions. An example of a higher level emotion is Awe or Gratitude. An example of a low level emotion is Spite. Higher level emotions evoke higher level thinking and facilitate understanding of complex concepts. Low level emotions trigger thoughts of revenge, and punishment.
Living in a state of lower thinking and feeling severs you from experiencing the full spectrum of your mind’s offering. It diminishes the quality of your life. You cannot grow from a place of lowly spite.
Like spite, bitterness is a low level emotion. Often bitterness and spite dance together. Their dance constructs a wall that severs you from your higher creative powers.
What Do I Do About It?
I use bitterness as a reminder to stop and be mindful. I meditate, I read someone amazing and allow myself to be humbled, I immerse myself in a new project.
I am not perfect at it. Sometimes my mind plays those bitter thoughts for a while before I recognize what is going on. It takes practice to notice your negative goings on. But the more you observe your mind, the better you get at it. Sometimes I sense a negative thought brewing up. It feels empowering to notice it before it gets a good grip.
Now some negative thoughts are of value. They alert you to real problems. But most low level emotions keep you in a loop of dumb inefficient self destructive thinking.
In every field unfairness exists in some way. Someone gets a promotion because of their looks, someone gets extra vacation time while you don’t. Someone gets favored by the algo for reasons you don’t understand.
You can quit one pursuit, but soon you will discover the inherent unfairness in your new environment. Of course you can decide to do nothing but stay home and watch your favorite shows. But then all of a sudden your favorite show gets cancelled. How unfair.
Therefore you may as well immerse yourself in what you want to do.
A saying I’ve heard in the gym: Focus on what you can control and not on what you cannot. That is good advice for all spheres of life.
One way to keep yourself on a higher note is by exposing yourself to beauty. I wrote about it here:
Experiencing Beauty Unlocks A Sacred Feature Of The Mind
For beauty to unlock a higher feature of your mind it needs to be allowed in. This requires you to be open and receptive to it. We pass beauty every day. W…
Thank you for reading.
I know what you mean. Once in a while I put out something I think is quite good and I wonder if the internet will respond.
And then it doesn't. And then I'll see some mediocre storytelling with 800 likes and a comment section full of comments like "this is absolutely, wildly incredible. It is not believable how good this is."
And it's like... okay, well then I guess people just respond to what they want to respond to.
I think the hardest part is, people want to be reminded of the same things over and over. That's the content people want. People want to keep reading "social media bad" and "positive affirmations good."
But people like you and me are pushing for something more meaningful than that, so it takes a much longer time to build an audience. We refuse to spoonfeed predictable messages. Because that's fucking boring.
In my opinion, if you have 10 paying subscribers, then you're further ahead than somebody who has 100,000 non-paying subscribers.
However, it is a bitter pill to swallow when you realize that social media users will never pay for almost all types of content. Even high quality content does not convince them to pay. Unfortunately, only a few specific types of content convince people to pay.