The moment of the spark

I think you have to be kind of ignorant in order be truly creatively gifted. I'm not saying you have to be stupid in order to have any sort of creative spark or artistic bent to you. You can be quite smart and be clever in your endeavors. But true creative genius needs a level of ignorance to come to light.

First of all, there's the blind desire to create something you have no idea if people will like. You either have to believe intrinsically that they will or just completely not care if they don't. Then you have to get past the voices in your head, both the ones from between and outside your ears. All the ones that say "stop" or "what are you doing" or "you shouldn't do this".

That last one comes in so many forms:
"You should just do..."
"They won't dance to it"
"I don't get it, why don't you...."
and on and on.

If you're in the position of trying to balance art and commerce, those voices get louder. This has been a challenge of mine through my whole life. I lacked that ignorance of other people's comments that would have allowed me to follow my muse where it wanted to lead me. I lacked that ignorance of my own fears about doing what I wanted to do. I lacked the ignorance to "act like a fool" when I really should have.

Dammit.