Observations: Part Three

Often times a great idea comes to reality, and far too often, it becomes far less than it began to be. Someone may start something in hopes of helping themselves as well as others, but if the person behind it all is not open minded to the differences in each and every person, soon it will take the creator’s idea of perfection as law. From that point on, all it can be is a niche group.

This time I am speaking of something in particular. I’m speaking of a publication to help artists progress themselves and their work, and perhaps help inspire along the way. Well, at least that’s what it once was. Soon they took on an editor who would accept no works that were not as his or her own to be anything less than worthy of his or her eyes. I’m not calling this specific editor’s works bad, in fact they are not. They are by no means anything I would care to have or to ponder, but that’s just the differences between one mind and another. His or her works are of his or her mind and as such grand. Sadly, it’s hard to view anything by such a closed minded person as anything more than flaunted vanity.

Your works may have no real appeal to me, but rest assured that if they are indeed true of you and your mind, then they are perfect and perfectly valid. In such, they will always appeal to me. My works may well be off the scale of your own scope of appeal, but I suspect that you (the reader of this very collection of my thoughts, whoever you are) will view them as no less than valid as my works (to view my art). You see, I’m an optimist and even in sheer hatred of a thing, I can’t help but to see the good side. I count it a blessing, not a fault.

That’s where things started going wrong, but far from the end of such disturbing changes in something that was once nothing less than awesomely great. I saw a person (let’s call him or her a “user” of said group / publication) offer a great and noble gesture to the publication and it’s creator. I also saw the creator practically demand that the “user” send the reward given by the publication to the “user” back to the publication. OK, let’s back up a bit and make it make sense for ya.

The “user” entered and won a contest by the publication and as such, won a monetary prize. The publication was in need of funds for something and the “user” graciously asked the publication (it’s owner) to retain the prize as part of the fund in need. The owner didn’t bother to read the (please excuse the caps) PUBLIC offering on the very forum that the owner owes his or her readership and such, publication to. She sent the prize money off to the winning user after the user had asked the owner not to.

ONLY then did the owner bother to read the post that was on top of his or her own forum, asking her to keep the prize as part of the funding needed.

What did the owner do then? The owner thanked the user and practically DEMANDED that the user send the prize money back. By the time the user received the prize money, he or she was in need of money his or her self, and very politely apologized in informing the owner that he or she would not be able to return the prize money.

This would have been disappointing to anyone, but we all should well know that it’s the intention that counts. Honestly, think about it. If the owner had not blundered so badly and kept sight of what his or her very publication was about, the owner would have retained the money and all would have been well.

What was the owner’s reaction? The owner proverbially “blew up” in reply (still public, mind you) and all but cussed the winner. This alone was a bad display, but the owner had to keep referring to the event in hateful tone over many separate topics and posting, all the while, listing the user’s real name.

OK, so maybe the winning user should have send the money back, even if some major thing had come up and the user truly needed it. Let’s go farther and say the user could well have been in the wrong and just kept the money out of temptation (not the case, trust me). Even still, there is no excuse for the owner of a literal “business” (such it has become and the law would never let the owner deny it) to display such poor demeanor publicly. Farther still, is the fact that the owner did so before all of his or her patrons and potential patrons!

So you get the idea. What began as a means of helping, has become a miniature kingdom with no means of forcing it’s citizens to remain in or part of the empire. All art MUST conform to the types and formalities of the owner and one editor in general.

Why have I gone so far to explain this simple experience?

The publication had made it past the critical stage where most falter and disappear. It was gaining readers and note at an extremely impressive rate. This may have gone to a couple heads, or perhaps the true idea was to become niche under false guise and retain readership, while playing god. Either way, or combination of any and all potential reasons (excuses), the publication has quickly lost momentum and coverage. These two minor instances I’ve brought to mention are not what caused it, but examples of the behavior that has become the standard which DID cause it. There’s a lesson to be learned here. A lesson for each and every one of us to take in, including myself.

No matter what it is that we create, when we give, sell or open it to the public, it is in part theirs. More over, we must retain an open mind to their own works, personalities and such. They obviously did in the case of ours, for there is no way that every part of a “thing” we had done would be viewed wholly as perfect to them. They made the gesture to take in and admire what we’d done. We didn’t “allow” them the privilege of having or seeing something so great of us that they should owe us anything.

The lesson goes much deeper and farther than this. In fact there are more lessons in this for all of us, but I leave that to each separate mind.

This a specific instance of a broad observation of such happening over and over again.

Frank