Be Mindful!
What do you think of when you hear the phrase “The Greater Good?” Chances are, you may think of any number of things, because it is a fairly vague term. Some of you may think of paying it forward or superheroes. You may think of personal sacrifice for the betterment of others, or if you’re really nerdy, you may think of Utilitarianism.
When I refer to the greater good, I am referring to having the discipline to trim aspects of your work that you truly love, in order to make the overall work better. When you work on your art, whether it be a piece of music, a movie, a painting, or your writing, you must consider the sum of all of it’s parts as opposed to looking at it as a series of small incidents.
This Concept In Practice…
If you’ve ever watched the special features on a DVD before, and checked out the deleted scenes, you’ve probably wondered how they could get rid of some of the scenes, because a lot of them are quite wonderful. You’ve probably looked down on the director for taking out such scenes because you happen to like them. Most likely though, the director probably liked those scenes more than you did, and was pained to get rid of them. The director, however, was more focused on the film as a whole, as opposed to a series of scenes. In other words, the director was more focused on the greater good.
What about the musical group who puts out an album that is shorter, but doesn’t consist of any filler tracks? Some people are of the opinion that if they are going to pay for music, then they want to have an album full of music, but wouldn’t you rather buy an album that consists of one tight track after another? Not many bands have the discipline to trim the fat from their creations and put out an album of pure quality, but they are often rewarded with good reviews when they do so. I know that I prefer listening to a shorter album with only good tracks over a longer album with the good tracks spaced out. Don’t you?
The Winding Road of Creativity
Creating is rarely ever a straight path. It is often winding, confusing, and tedious. You’ll often backtrack and lose progress on your path towards completing your art. Sometimes your art will take you in directions that you never would have expected, and sometimes the direction that you thought would be perfect will turn out to be uninspired. This is simply how it goes when you create. It is not important that you sit down and create A+ material every time that you create. What is important is that you have the ability to remember where your path is supposed to take you, and to have the discipline to take out anything that strays from that path.
Suppose that you’re writing a true story about someone who ran for public office and won. Now, naturally, there was more to that person than their career. They had friends, family, hobbies, likes, dislikes, and most likely had a plethora of interesting things to include in the story. However, your job as a writer would be to only focus on the events that had to do with that person running for public office. That’s your plotline, and anything else is unnecessary, no matter how interesting it may be. There ARE such things as subplots, but they need to support the plotline and add weight and dimension to it, not detract from it.
Most likely, if you are reading this, then you are an artist of some kind. You may be out of practice, but you’re most likely an artist. No matter what kind of art that you create, whether it be in the form of writing, visual depictions, or aural creations, you would definitely benefit from keeping your eye on the end of the path, on the greater good. Sometimes, it is necessary to sacrifice parts of your art for the greater good.
Whenever I see the phrase ‘For the Greater Good’ a big flashing red light light goes off in my head – warning me that I am being mislead.
In politics the term is used to avoid giving the real reason for some negative action. If the people rights need to be scaled back because of, suppression, war, control, the reason is always, ‘for the greater good’. The politician does not want to say that he/she want to control you, so they mask the truth by saying they are doing it ‘for the greater good’.
As for artists, when they are criticized for any reason: sloppiness, poor guilty, not enough music, cut scenes etc. they they can always argue that it was ‘for the greater good’. It is a great term because there is no way to qualify it – the reason behind any negative thing can be ‘for the greater good’
For me it is a cop out term. Used to hide the truth with a vague term that cannot be defined or argued against.
Roman´s last blog ..Honesty Increases AdSense Revenue But So Do Big Numbers – Which Is Better?
Great post Trey with really good examples! The same philosophy can be used when writing a post. Many times I start typing a post and as I am getting into the subject it gets longer and longer. Next thing I know the post is 2 or 3 pages long. So, like a movie director (editor) I have to go in and take out the fluff and shorten it up to a more readable post for the great good of my readers
Doug Dillard´s last blog ..I Used to Be a Dotcom Millionaire, Well at Least On Paper!
@ Roman
Your political views on that subject are very similar to mine. I choose the phrase “The Greater Good” because I know that it is highly stigmatized. For people to give up their freedoms or whatever “for the greater good” they are familiar with the concept. Now, I don’t agree with the fact that doing so is “for the greater good” but that’s a whole ‘nother blog right there!
As far as your comparison to artists, I disagree. Art is highly subjective, which means that if someone were to say that a piece of art sucks, they are wrong. It doesn’t suck. That person just doesn’t like it. If an artist is truly happy with what they’ve created, it doesn’t make them wrong if someone else dislikes it. You can’t please everyone.
And besides, when I reference “the greater good” regarding art, I’m not referring to artists using a cop out. I’m referring to an artist having the discipline to trim aspects of his work that he might like in order to achieve a more polished final product. This can be painful, but it’s for the greater good of the art.
@ Doug
You know exactly what I’m talking about. It takes discipline to condense your work. For one thing, it goes against our nature to delete things we spent time on creating. It hurts our ego to throw away something we worked on. But secondly, we oftentimes delete things that we like, and it’s not always easy to stay on topic.