While I’d never thought I did anything creative purely for money or worldly gain, I became acutely aware, over time, just how much "success" had inadvertently motivated far more of my artistic ideas than I’d thought. I’d always been a realist, and so proud that I was as versed in right brain matter as much as left brain stuff.
I’d spent much time working with other artists who typically were naive regarding business and marketing of their ideas. I’d tell them over and over again that nothing was sadder than art which cannot find its audience. I'd tell them that not everything they created is meant for earthly, general consumption, and to know which was which.
While at the inception of a creative idea, and though out its incubation, “earthly agenda” in fact, should be the farthest thing from the creator’s mind until the idea is out of the heart and birthed. Still the question must be answered. Is this expression for me alone or other humans in the physical world? If the answers is yes, it's for public consumption then (sometimes, unfortunately) that's the moment when pure creativity will now become a commodity of "talent." It's at that moment that a creative idea is now subject to the dance of acceptance and approval. Without it, money is not earned.
At this intersection, off must come the creativity cap and on must go the business cap which means creativity (once real and pure) now goes through the social vetting process. Often it does not translate, or to be more precise, much will get lost in the translation. There isn't a real artist I know who has ever been happy with the translation (I included). So theirs is always a life of compromise.
Real creativity comes from a deeper place within you…long before it hits your brain. This place has no conception of time. It needs no agenda to succeed and requires no inadvertent "human" spin to motivate its process.
While we can often think that infusing the creative process with our concerns of money, survival, and approval might be prudent, it’s counterproductive.
Trust me, if you begin your creative dream process simply, quietly, and calmly from your soul, it will bubble up. It will start generating its own passion, and its own reason for “being” in a far more powerful way then looking for social acceptance. If its reason to exist is pure, then faith in it won’t be hard to muster, and enrolling others into that dream becomes infectious versus arm twisting.
Create for you first. The rest of the process of introducing it to other humans is nothing but marketing. Know the difference. Often I teach students in performing arts schools, that a creative life is far more fulfilling and lasting than one which teeters on the fickle edge of popularity.