Dialogue

Everything you create, whether it exists as visual art, a passage of writing, or something different, becomes part of a dialogue as soon as someone else other than yourself sees it. This is absolutely unavoidable, and sometimes I think people don't really understand this, or maybe they don't want to or they struggle with the idea and fight against it.

Having an intelligent discussion (about art, life, or whatever) where two sides have opposing views can be very enlightening and interesting. If each party has the ability to weigh up the evidence provided to them, and change their point of view based on the evidence, then the world can be like some kind of giant cultural open source project where things slowly get better.

Sometimes it is not possible to have an intelligent conversation (for example a normal person trying to have an evenly weighed argument with a racist or hateful person, or between an atheist and religious person, or with someone who adamantly believes that fairies exist) but generally, in the context of art, writing, etc, it is possible to talk things through and come up with some kind of conclusion (whether that means one of the parties agreeing with the other or not).

If you are not willing to become part of the dialogue you have created, or you are a viewer and just want to add "your two cents" without continuing the conversation, then you should probably seriously consider why you don't want to hear what the answer is going to be.

In other words, please don't leave anonymous comments on my blog and then delete them so I have no way of replying to you. Jerk.