In Seth Godin’s article “Brainwashed,” he talks about 7 ways to get over the idea that you’re just average and reinvent yourself. Two of those methods are to “acknowledge the lizard” and make art.
Acknowledging the lizard means to get over what other people may tell you or think of you, and do your thing. The lizard brain is the part of the brain that worries about safety, and shuts down our art so it isn’t laughed at. This shutdown is the resistance that gets in the way of your work. You know how when someone is annoying you, you just ignore them? In order to ignore them and get on with your life, you have to acknowledge them. The same goes for this resistance. You have to acknowledge it in order to be able to get around it and create some art.
Of the other six methods, the one that stood out to me the most was “make art.” Godin defines art as something that changes everything, something new. Making art is creating something that hasn’t been created yet. That’s what we’re doing with these assignments we’re posting. We are creating soundscapes and songs that people haven’t yet seen the likes of. We create these things, and by posting them, we connect to other people on a human level.
These blog assignments are a great way to connect with each other and become greater artists. They show that we have learned what has been taught to us, and that we can rise above the norm to make new things. However, through these posts and lab assignments, it should be quite clear that we know our stuff. There’s no reason for us to have to be required to post a certain amount of certain words to hammer the point home that we know it. Yes, there is benefit in critiquing other people’s work – we help them get better at their craft and possibly learn something ourselves. But there can and will be nothing positively constructive coming out of a partially scripted critique as opposed to our own words.
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