Notes on Creative Comparison
Are you constantly comparing yourself to other creatives and coming up short?
This is not intended to be a full and comprehensive exploration of creative comparison. Rather it’s what I’m thinking right now and I hope to explore in more detail in my book. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Creative comparison. Where you compare your creative endeavours to those of others. It’s nothing new, I think many writers and creatives over the years have struggled or suffered with it. We can be thoroughly pleased with our best efforts one minute but, when coming up for air and looking around, can see our best efforts are nowhere near as good as another creative’s work. Cue despondency, beating ourselves up with a stick and feelings of abject failure. As Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “Comparison is the Thief of Joy.”
But during this technological and visual age where we are actively encouraged to post our behind-the-scenes, where we share our creative journey as well as the finished result, where we are encouraged to be on social media and create a community with similar writers and creatives and where, despite our best efforts, social media is still a smorgasbord of our best work (and not the creative mess that usually happens) I think creative comparison is a really difficult mindset to push through.
To write this piece I picked out some books by my favourite writers on the creative mindset. Elizabeth Gilbert, Austin Kleon and Julia Cameron. And I couldn’t find a reference to creative comparison in Big Magic, Austin’s various books on creativity or The Artist’s Way.
Admittedly I didn’t re-read and refresh myself on the entirety of each book but if it wasn’t obvious but was mentioned then maybe it still demonstrates how (in)significant each writer sees it. Or, it’s one of those things that just isn’t talked about.
Because comparison is like envy isn’t it? One of the seven deadly sins. Or evidenced in Shakespearean characters like Macbeth who suffer from envy or jealousy making them weak or bad.
Does admitting that you’re comparing yourself to someone else make you sound like a narcissist? After all, can we not just be happy for someone else’s success without making it all about us?