When will you be rejected, how often, by who, and never if. There are three important factors to take into consideration when dealing with this topic: And they are in direct conjunction with our egos. Why are we rejected? How do we deal with it? And what role does rejection play in society? There is only a small portion of the population who actually enjoy rejection. And they are the ones who are rejecting you. Before we start off on the psychological devastation caused by rejection to the artist, we must first understand this group, the ones who reject. It`s quite enjoyable playing "Caesar" for a day. Thumbs Up for success and thumbs Down for rejection. If you`ve ever had the pleasure of deciding over another persons future you will agree. The more people who apply to "Caesars" gallery, grant, museum, school or whatever his poison might be, the better he will feel about himself. The more people he will have to reject, naturally, but in those circles it is one of the criteria for success. If no one applied he would be devastated. He would, in a twist of fait, feel the same rejection. Caesar could own a gallery and only receive 500 applications per year. His fellow Caesars receive perhaps a thousand or two, and he feels rejection. This may sound absurd to the four hundred and eighty nine artists (500-11(accepted)=489) he rejected, but none the less. Rejection is a subjective experience. But what about the 489 rejected artists, how do they feel? The truth of the matter is that there are many talented artists out there, quite a few actually. But we still feel we deserve success more than the next guy. We most likely do not! There will always be someone working even harder than you, with fewer breaks in his life, who in all fairness should be accepted, while you were rejected. But we all know that life is not fair, or do we? And this is why our egos` suffer. Maybe this is the truth? Maybe the next guy actually has more talent or is more deserving? We tend to explain away success on other terms though; they had the right contacts, produce interesting but conform art, slept their way to the top, sold their soul to the devil or some other absurd scenario. But the nagging doubt remains. Maybe we stink big time! So we are depressed, frustrated, angry or laugh it off. In our development rejection has curbed our personalities, given us a set of boundaries to work by and within. Forcing us eventually to accept our station in life. Whether it be the waitress who realizes she will never become another Demi Moore, or the artist slash school teacher accepting the fact that he will never be another Picasso. (A small digression: The whole bit about becoming famous after you die is probably a last attempt by the communal artistic ego to save face. Most famous artists were famous before they died. Maybe not AS famous, but none the less. The exceptions to this rule are few and far between.) So how do we deal with rejection? Should we accept our station in life and give up? Should we hurl obscenities at the guilty party? Develop an intricate meditation and find our true selves? Move to Alaska? They probably all work. But lets pretend you want to keep your bloated ego. Without one you will never try and try again, and you will therefore have a lesser chance of succeeding. How do we keep our ego in tact, and how is this process accepted by society? Society accepts the fact that you find your little slot in life. You tried a few times and failed a few times and ended up where you belong, a semi successful artist; teaching a bit on the side and selling a work of art now and then. Not exactly what you had envisioned in your youth, but you accept your position in life and are happy to have gotten this far at least. When should we accept the boundaries of our abilities? When we are 40 or perhaps 50 or never? Should we always be aiming for the highest peak? Or does falling down time and time again hurt just a little bit too much? The older you get, the harder it will be to sustain your bloated ego. Friends and family will shake their heads when your back is turned. "When will he\she face reality?" We all know that the greatest inventions and innovations in art and science were made possible by pig headed stubborn individuals who never accepted defeat. They walked the extra mile and proved their adversaries wrong. But what might not be so obvious are all the pig headed stubborn people who never got anywhere. We know this, society knows this, and religion and politics are geared to holding the masses in place. Why? Because aiming for the highest peak is seldom productive. What sort of society would we have if everyone wanted to be president, famed artist, great politician, explorer or fireman? Society need the footman. The pawn. The small building blocks that make up society. And because of this, society has a somewhat dubious attitude to ambition. Ambition is accepted and encouraged in most societies. But only up to a point. It is expected of you to realize what your own boundaries might be, and to do your best within them. Accepting this fact will make you content, but nothing more. So it is up to you to decide. Will you opt for the highest peak, experiencing short moments of bliss and a lot of pain every time you tumble off the summit? Or is the green valley below more tempting. Grazing in lush fields, glaring up at the tall peaks now and again, wondering what on earth they are doing way up there. |
Rejection and Ambition |