I'm throwing this bottle at the sea cause I don't really know who to talk to about this subject... I don't have many friends and less even artist friends, so if you dear stranger read this I'm glad to have your attention.

I'mma be real, I'm not a very popular artist, and I get really baffled (if not a little envious) by the number of clicks some people get... Sometimes it's even demoralizing when you put so much time and effort into an art piece.

Last night I was watching a video about you know... bla bla ecology and all that schtick (I'm not gonna bore you with that we've all heard it a 1000 times), but it made me re-think about a very important aspect of our current "system//society //thingymagig"... the myth of infinite growth. Basically, We put a huge emphasis on bigger number = better, you know, bigger GDP, bigger profit, bigger number of sales, bigger reduction of carbon, bigger number of people that can read but obviously it's impossible to keep growing forever in system with finite ressources... Ofc, those are easy things to measure and quantify so we naturally tend to focus on them as indicators of good, but they don't quantify the wellbeing and positive impact on people's lives.

• As an exaple, we make more GDP and are more productive/hour, but we work more, are more tired, have less time for hobbies... Or we push the litteracy rate up but by forcing it the quality becomes really low and ends up having a detrimental several detrimental effects on peoples lives (this kinda happened in my country).

Paradoxically, we chase a goal that looks good in the number but does not really translate into something good.

The same point could be made for art. 1000, 10 000, 100 000, 1 000 000... those start to be some unconceivably large numbers at the human scale, and honestly it's kind of impressive.

But nowdays with social media, Art has become kinda "disposable" in a weird way... People will look at your art for seconds, maybe click and then keep scrolling never to think about it again. Are you really really reaching your audience and having an impact on people? Or would you rather make art for only one person, and that person will hold it dear in his heart for months... if not years. Would you rather make art that bring you satisfaction on a technical and personal level, even if it's just for yourself? (this is maybe more my case)

So yeah... to summarize, are you really using the real indicator to measure the success of your art? Is there a better thing to emphasize than just fame and clout... Maybe bringing a long lasting smile and gifting something beautiful to someone who will really appreciate it and your work?

If you ever feel down and demoralized by the digital numbers... Remember that, maybe you made someone really happy and that's maybe worth more than 10000000 empty clicks.

Thanks for reading my ramblings... Raz out