Interesting things are not the things that are generally labelled as awesome, why?
Maybe because awesome is surprising, unexpected. Really?

Listen to this song, if you know at least one popular NIN song, than nothing in this song is a surprise.



And yet it is great, this goes also for the real Trent Reznor. This satire and very clever observation of how a famous NIN-song is made is a reminder of how some psychologic wonders and their respective mechanics work.

If you follow the rules, there are no surprises, then there are no expectations and you can still overdeliver in other regards.

I think awesomeness is a combination of many factors including surprise, authenticity, personality, relevance and meaning.

The problem with awesome is that once established the envelope has to be pushed at all given times. And actually you end up either pushing yourself always to get better which leads to burnout sooner or later...or you settle with mediocre.

But, that may not be the worst thing that can happen. Let´s say you are a great artist, always eager to learn new things, you can make a living from the things you love to do. From a subjective clients point-of-view, your worst work may still be way better than that of a graduate that has yet 20.000 hours to go before taking the plunge into the freelance world.

So why still pushing the envelope if it is good enough for others and especially years to come?

I believe artists do this out of a necissity. A reason that is unimaginable to the regular human public.

I tend to label that necissity as meaningful work, but I can be misled.
However, I don´t do that for client or a certain project, and many conversations with fellow artists confirm my stance in a way that I´m not alone... Artists do all the improvement simply for their own pleasure.

A selfish bunch of people.

Viewing that from a corporate view, this conclusion is all the sudden - not so far off.

Corporations often hold back patents that later become the norm in industries as seen for cars, food or clothes.The reason might be simply because planning of trends can only be arranged if there are plans and if there are others with the same interests.

From another corporate view, for example apple or McDonalds, this technique is used to deliver always great products. If they would deliver awesome products, the pressure would be so high it wouldn´t even be sustainable for a long period of time. So instead they settle with mediocre and deliver it constantly so that there´s still room for improvement and for the new.

This tactic works. worldwide. Every minute of the day.

With every song. With every Artwork. With every franchise.

Think about it.

And maybe you can relax.