We all tend to want to reach more people, whether that’s through our creative work, sports, acting, etc. Even on this blog, which I’m doing almost entirely for my own growth, it would be kind of fun to have more traffic.
That said, a bit of obscurity can be a good thing. If you look at famous actors or athletes, there is certainly a lot to like about the life they have, but there are downsides as well (they can’t go out in public as easily, etc).
The same is true for online work. I look at someone like Chris Lema that gets a ton of traffic to his site, so as a consequence he turned off the comments feature a few years ago. It was a fantastic little community in the comments, but it was simply too much work for him to maintain. Turning off the comments was unfortunate, but absolutely the right move for him.
In his book “Steal Like An Artist“, author Austin Kleon simply says this:
Share your work with others to become well-known, but enjoy the benefits of obscurity first.
Becoming well-known will provide a ton of benefits to you, but if you’re still rather obscure, take some time to enjoy the benefits that come from that as well.
