The Audience Comes Last

The tension I feel

I’m reading Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act right now, which is a great book on creativity if you can spit out the weird spirituality elements.¹ And I’ve been weighing a couple of quotes from it side-by-side. Rubin writes:

“In terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last.”

And

“One of the greatest rewards of making art i…