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RICHARD TSENG

RICHARD TSENG
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What to do when most people hate your work

December 12, 2019

In his incredible book, Musashi, Eiji Yoshikawa has his titular character impart the following advice to his disciple:

“Instead of wanting to be like this or that, make yourself into a silent, immovable giant. That’s what the mountain is. Don’t waste your time trying to impress people. If you become the sort of man people can respect, they’ll respect you, without your doing anything.”
— Eiji Yoshikawa

To compare oneself with Mount Fuji instead of the billions chasing likes, impressions, and followers, changes one’s perspective on things.
it is a sobering reminder during success and a comforting reassurance in failure.
Think of all who have come before you and all who will follow. Very little of what’s done will matter. Not the next award-winning masterpiece nor the latest much-maligned stinker. What matters is how you carry yourself in both situations.
Not what others think, nor even what happened.
It’s about what you did, and who you are.

Because audiences are fickle, and opinions change all the time, it benefits us all to model ourselves after what’s eternal instead.

Then, if nothing we make lasts even as long as one of Mount Fuji’s fruit flies, we will at least be what the generations passing by its base need: something solid and reliable they can depend on. Support during life’s storms, and joy during sunny days.

If we all strove to make work that did things for our audience, instead of trying to please the myriad of stakeholders who want audiences to do things for them, I think you’ll find the hate drastically decrease.

Then, without even trying, you will have become what the headline-grabbers, forum trolls, and snark-dispensers so desperately seek to be: someone who matters.

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© 2019 RICHARD TSENG