Isaac Asimov said, “If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood, I’d type faster.”
More If’s to think about:
If the crowd likes sweets, does that mean we ought to sweeten most every food? And instead of sprinkling a few grains of pure cane sugar from Hawaii, grown in the sun, (didn’t we do that when we were kids with little repercussions), we hire scientists to create chemicals that trick our brains into thinking we are tasting sweet, all the while stacking on weight.
If the crowd likes big booms, explosions, and war games, does that mean we ought to up the ante in movies, books, and video games to see who can provide the biggest boom, fire, or car crash?
If children like solving puzzles and playing games via the internet, does that mean that the only way we can provide tension and conflict, it to kill something?
If the crowd likes to be chased does that mean we ought to provide a chase scene in every action movie?
If the crowd likes digests over books, then should we offer more U-tube videos, sound bites, and quick reads?
If the crowd will stand in line for a popular attraction, and by-pass the meatier dramas, documentaries, or movies of substance, then do we need to sell the sizzle and not the steak?
If the crowd likes simple, cheap, fast and fun, then, in order to sell, do we need to enter those concepts into most all advertising?
It the crowd doesn’t like to read, does that mean we stop printing books?
Do you think when Michelangelo was carving David he was concerned about whether the populace would like it?
Do you think when Andy Warhol painted soup cans he thought that people loved Campbell’s Soup so much they would want a painting of that product on their walls?
Do you think when Orville and Wilbur Wright climbed into their bicycle made flyable with wings they thought they were going to get rich building airplanes?
No, these people were experimenting. They were expressing their creativity; they did what they wanted to do and in the doing of it, advanced their craft, and thus civilization.
There is an aspect of the crowd that creative people sometimes forget—that is that chase scenes wear out, that hype gets old, and that the new, the fun, the creative, gets their juices flowing.
Do the work that matters to you.
You’re the one to make a brighter day.
