Being On The Side Of Creators

Then the LORD said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel . . . and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts. Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab . . . to help him.

—Exodus 31:1–6

One of the best parts of living with another artist is that we have an ongoing conversation about what it means to live well as a creative person, and Aaron and I try to make a practice of not speaking negatively about the things that other people create. We are, of course, massively opinionated. We have strong feelings about music and writing and a thousand other things. But we’re trying to be on the side of creators, not on the side of consumers and critics.

Once you’ve labored something into life, you know how hard it is to do—the dream and then the work and then the endless revisions. The adjustments, the bursts of inspiration and the agonizing middle stretch, where everything feels pointless. It takes guts and hard work to make things, and even more guts and hard work to share them, so we want to be people who congratulate the effort instead of nitpicking the result. I want to spend my time making things, not sitting back and pointing out what someone else should have done.