A Vicious Cycle: Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia

Ira Glass’s taste video is one of my favorite videos in the world when I’m feeling down about my work. This is why I’ve started to embrace the idea of failure. I’ve dedicated my sketchbook to failure, actually, because sometimes you just have to DO things, and as I’ve started to reach out and try and sell my work, my ideas of what’s good doesn’t necessarily come across to other people; as I embark on creating my original works in comics and graphic novels, my idea of what’s good won’t necessarily match up with what other people think is good, and that’s okay. Because someone out there will connect with my taste and if I can reach one person, that’s all that matters.

I found this chart after I actually watched the Ira Glass video, and I think this really relates to not only taste, but skill. 

Mike Birbiglia’s article is something I needed to hear, especially the three steps 1. Don’t wait, 2. Fail, and 3. Learn from the Failure. I’m so scared to start anything for fear of failing—like I mentioned about the Ira Glass video, I’m trying to embark on so many different paths in my artmaking, and I’m terrified of the failure of rejection. I’m so scared of being rejected, it seems better to wait, and rework things and rework things and keep reworking them in order to post pone actually doing anything. Artists are inherently vain creatures, I believe; we need validation for our art making, if we can’t get that validation we feel like we aren’t real artists and thus, must quit. It’s a horrible, vicious cycle, but it’s the worst cycle an artist can be in.