Lichtenbergian Precepts: Audience, part 4

We’re looking at the Precept of AUDIENCE, and we’ve covered the first two AUDIENCES you have when you create: those people out there, and those people right here. Today we look at the third and most critical audience: you.

Of course you are your most important audience. As I’ve ranted recently, Making the Thing That Is Not is quintessentially human; if there were no humans, there would be no art. It comes from us, and we define who we are by what we make.

So yes, you are your primary audience, because what you make — what you choose to make, how you make it — comes from you. If it is not in turn making you, then all the applause in the world is not going to satisfy you.

I think of those souls who spend their lives Making the Thing That Is Not in secret, never connecting with those people out there or those people right here, yet when they die we find incredible treasure troves of art. Everyone marvels at the complexity, the honesty, the simply stunning beauty of what they did, and some will wonder “how this untrained artist could ever produce such work” — but we Lichtenbergians know how.

So create, create, and create some more, and create for your prime audience: yourself.