This is general advice that many of us are told about our art. As artists, we see all of the flaws and our confidants assure us that no one else will notice. This is often not enough to fend off the brain weasels though. Anxiety just tells you that is wishful thinking. But I came to a revelation recently that will give the rational brain something to fight back with.
Our revelation starts with color, specifically, the color blue. Homer describes the Mediterranean Sea as “wine-dark.” Analysis of other classical texts around the time show that things that modern people would describe as “blue” are not described that way. Egyptian murals show fresh water as green. The day time sky is described as “light black.” Classical language had no word for the color “blue” until late and for most languages, this is true. Blue is one of the last colors to have a word.
Eventually, the Egyptian make a pigment from lapis lazuli and add a word for “blue” and nearby languages start adding a word for blue as well.
But surely, the physics didn’t change and it did not. The sky still scattered sunlight in the same way and would make a “blue” sky as we would understand it. The water would still reflect the sky in the same way and would be “blue.” Yet, these classical authors didn’t have a word for blue and don’t make one until much later. Why?
Some scientists tried an experiment . They found a tribe of people who didn’t have a word for blue in their language. They showed them a series of squares, 11 of which were green and 1 of which was light blue to my eyes. It took the people of this tribe significant time to identify the square that was not “green.” We are not talking a delay of milliseconds but many seconds to correctly find the square that was different. Yet to my Western eyes, it was immediately obvious.
They next showed the members of this tribe, 11 squares that were green, and 1 square that was a slight shade of green different. To my eyes, I could tell no difference between the 12 squares. This tribe however had dozens of words for different shades of green. They very quickly identified the different square.
What does this mean? It means that without the words to describe the difference and without the thought processes and neural pathways trained to understand the differences, they couldn’t see the blue square and I couldn’t see the slightly different green square. The difference didn’t exist for us. The brain ignores what it doesn’t understand in favor of what it does understands!
This may seem obvious but it is worth saying again. In general, the brain ignores what it doesn’t understand. You can’t see what you don’t know! It applies in a lot of ways, especially with some of our social issues but it applies to your art. Your audience can’t see the “flaws”; they don’t know anything about them so their brain ignores them.
This is a generalization. Some people are very observant. Some people know more things than that admit. But the vast majority of your audience isn’t lying to you. They don’t see the flaw you obsess about. It is the scientific net that I have been needing to corral my brain weasels. I will likely need reminders and you will too. But we have a way to fight back.