the importance of opinion, regardless it be positive or negative

Prior to starting my journey in the creative field, I had done a good amount of shadow work and generally enough work on myself to approach this from a healthy way. I’ve realized many things along the way, yet one thing I knew from the beginning was to do the things I share with you guys for myself, and that my opinion matters the most above all. If I like it, then I like it, and if others don’t, then that’s fine too.

However, there is one valuable piece of information that I’ve realized over the span of these last couple of months that I owe to a person in particular.

To provide a bit of context, 020806 was a book that I started writing when I was 16, finished producing when I was 17, and fully published by the time I was 18.During those two years, I treated this project like my little baby. From the ages of 16 to 18, I’d say a good 80% of my thoughts went into the creative process of the book, and even if I could go back in time, I still wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

The main obstacle arose when it came to the whole publishing process of the book. I was supposed to do the whole rollout/campaign of it back in summer of 2023, yet the time it took to get it approved for self publishing by the first company I worked with made it so my first Instagram post was released all the way in January of 2024, which is crazy.

Almost all the responsibilities I had in my life prior was to make my parents proud, and until I started writing this book, I felt I was exclusively living life for them. This book was more than just a book for me, but an opportunity that allowed me to start living for myself.

What, in a way, could make the creative process frustrating, is that if you place too much of yourself in what you do, whenever something like a publishing company takes months to approve your book, you feel throughout that time like your entire life is on pause and everything feels dull.

It reached a point where, for a lack of a better word, I hated my book and how much value it held in my life.

If I’m being honest, with the exception of my “(4/3)” post, even though I expressed how much I loved my whole project to my close friends around me, I, at a certain point, couldn’t even revisit my old posts because I felt that I had outgrew and learned to hate what I had posted.

I’m a person that grows in a lot of directions mentally, and once couldn’t even read their own book, yet learned to unconditonally appreciate whatever I create once I met this one person.

It all begun when I started working at a café called Pigeon. My older brother’s friend that got me in as a busboy decided to buy my book, and happened to mention it to a few people. Eventually, it reached one person in particular, and I still remember how they approached me. I was at the front of the store, moving tables together that were meant for two and grouping them into one big table because there was a reservation that was made for multiple people, when she came up to me and asked:

“Would you find me weird if I read your book?”

I said no, and explained to her that a lot of the people that read my book were either friends or mutual friends, and that I’ve never gotten the opportunity to let somebody that barely knows me to read it, so her opinion would be extremely valuable to me.

A few weeks passed, she eventually read through it all, and decided to give me her opinion through 7 pages in the form of a hand written letter. It made me very happy to read through what she thought, and along the way, was able to see the book through her lens.

I had realized at that moment, that her opinion had managed to breathe love and life back into the book for me, something that once had a surprisingly uncomfortable grip on my life.

Regardless of whether it would’ve been 7 pages of pure appreciation or hatred, I discovered the importance of opinions when it comes to creative work.

It is, of course, important to not really care about what others think and to do it for yourself, but once you trap yourself in your own head, and never care to look at how others perceive your art, you miss out on a different way of appreciating and critiquing what you do.

At the time, I hated a good amount of the content that was found inside of my book, yet one’s utterly frivolous piece of work might be something that one might appreciate deeply.

Although I may grow into a person that would learn to despise what I’m writing even now, I continue to write and do what I do, as somebody else may find enough value in what I put out to let me know what they think, and give me the privilege of seeing my own art through their respective lens, which would allow me to fall in love with my art all over again, regardless of if they adored, or despised it.

We still keep in touch as I’m writing this, and although we may become nothing but memories to each other in the future, she’s taught me a valuable lesson that I will continue to carry with me for as long as I live, probably.

Thank you, Julia.

written on: july 11, 2024 at 12:59 am