“Small thoughts subversively strip away the fire of imagination, the generosity of the collaborative spirit, and that the halo of every dream.”
Small thoughts is publishers who try and grab more and more and give less and less. Always citing how costly and risky their business is, how it is such an honour they chose my work, and how hard it is. So I should take less of a royalty, do more free work for them…
“Small thinking has exploited the flat world, the virtually interconnected world, and globalisation to give character and significance to the consumption of mind-numbing, irrelevant, lower-vibration pop culture in every country and to the creation of a disposable society of throwaway goods, throwaway people, and throwaway dreams.”
Nowhere is this more visible in the interface between artists and the commercial middlemen. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with being a middleman business. As with all human endeavours, one can choose to add value or destroy it. The problem here is that the current system we have seem to value the creation of the work (the dream and passion behind the work) much less than the middleman mechanism of marketing, PR-ing, and sales.
The undeniable reality is, both parties need each other. And true collaboration is what is needed, not small-thinking fuelled exploitation.
With true collaboration, both parties will commit to getting the work out there.
But small thinking stops this from happening.
“Put an end to destructive, manipulative, parasitic, oppressive relationships.” Say yes to true collaboration. It is far more rewarding and profitable than short sighted exploitation.
From The Think Big Manifesto by Michael Port.
