Hmm, I claim neither refined taste nor superior marketing ability. I’ve only cultivated minimum viable mediocrity at both. But I’m indifferent to both in a very specific way that makes them marginal concerns to me. Except I can’t name the central concern they’re marginal to.
For years people have accused me of both a) leaving $ on the table, by not marketing myself enough and b) trafficking in middlebrow non-aesthetic stuff. But these are not a result of deliberate intent to self-sabotage or offend connoisseurs. They are side effects of solving for X
I feel like there’s a triangle with beauty/taste at one vertex, money at another and X at the 3rd. I used to think X = make sense in 2012, but now I don’t think so. I don’t think I solve for making sense. https://ribbonfarm.com/2012/08/09/the-interesting-times-triangle/…
I probably solve for some function of elan vital. Flow-of-Aliveness. Ymmv, but solving for either money or beauty as the principal component of utils has always seemed like a deeply acting-dead activity to me.
Solving for aliveness, but in a mediocritizing way not optimizing way. If you solve for 100% alive you’re doing it wrong. I shoot for 60% where my base is probably 40%. So feeling 50% more alive than I’m temperamentally predisposed to, but 40% less than what my brain can handle
I'm confident many people striving for "make beauty" would insist they are solving for elan vital as well. Perhaps your definition of "sense" was off? iirc it was more about actionable knowledge rather than just becoming the part of universe that can well observe itself