Choosing Joy: How Pleasure Outweighs Profit in Creativity

I'm a strong proponent of Pleasure over Business. I mean, what the Follow Your Art model and brand is founded on is Pleasure over Business. Allow me to try and break it down for you.

Let's say working with you for me is 1) equal parts fun and profit. Great. Let's keep working together. Is it enough to say having as much fun as possible doing this thing I enjoy and creating a positive income in the process makes it worthwhile? There’s that whole schtick about doing what you love and the money following but that’s not what I’m saying here. I’m saying there are dynamics where that is the case and there are dynamics where that isn’t. But if it is, I’m with it.

Now, the second way I’m seeing this play out (beyond equal parts both ways) is if it's 2) all business and no fun. Safe to say, in my world, that’s another way of saying all-stale and all-boring. The work I create, when it comes to how I work, may or not be stale or great in those circumstances (I can’t always or largely ever predict how a particular project will have turned out as well as the state I was in during my personal creative process, before the fact, as there are still many things beyond one’s control that you may or may not have to or choose to let go the reins on while finding a way to be perfectly, from a particular viewpoint at least, comfortable with) but the work created from that headspace won't always be great in my eyes which lucky for me is how working alone or with a person I really enjoy the presence of is like … IMO those works always turns out great. In these lovely and plentiful cases, the working is fun and the fun is working.

But … let's say it's 3) all fun and no business. That there's no profit margin or equity building or any of that …but there is an investment of time and attention in the fun we're having. For me, that's still a worthy investment and a viable option. Here’s how: the work that comes from that will be a pleasure which means it will also have been generated and marinated in both positive energy and positive performance. From there, it still works beyond that triple fold - it’s good fun in the short run, good art in both short and long runs, and a great story to tell eventually. I’m sure you can find ways to make the second of these 3 a great story but this third one always is, and you don’t have to try to make it so. In fact, the less you try, the easier it becomes.

What am I trying to say? You can NOT have it both ways.

I'm not saying art can't be created from bad or ill-informed states, they obviously can. You have all kinds of artists across all kinds of domains across all kinds of histories who’ve done their particular art from places of depression or anxiety or addiction or psychoses (some of my best work) or whatever, creating beautiful things that they couldn't have or at least wouldn't have had they not been in those states. But for me, I know what helps me produce the work I find myself most pleased with (even if not every work was created from a state I was pleased with) and that means -if I have to choose- I’m choosing Pleasure over Business. I’m choosing Fun over Profit. It’s an easy choice.