For me, creativity fulfills its purpose when realized in the creation of something. I am not particularly bothered if nobody likes it (either in the traditional sense of like or in the social media sense of like). I don’t take pictures, make photographs, collect moments and scenes, or write words either hoping for approval or fearing disapproval. I create when I want to create something. It is an act of thinking, of reflecting, of musing, of imagining. I create for an audience of two, an audience both intimately familiar and entirely foreign. I create for my present and future selves. Each photograph, each paragraph a souvenir, a memento mori, a requiem.
I feel no compulsion to participate in an economy of likes and followers. Even a 1000 true fans is more than I need to be happy, to be a success. When I am ambitious, I think: “I’m not trying to entertain the world, I’m trying to entertain people with the same values and interests that I have.” But most days I’m happy only trying to entertain myself.