It's one thing to do work in spite of nay-sayers and critics. It's another, greater challenge to continue on in a direction different from where the admirers and allure of "success" draws you.

Tim Kreider exploring the stubborn nature of painters De Chirico and Derain:

What I can’t help but admire about them is their indifference to critics and admirers alike, their untouchable self-assurance in their own idiosyncratic instincts and judgment. I admire their doggedly following their own paths, even if I’m not as interested in where they led. I admire their cussedness. It’s a value-neutral quality in itself, cussedness, amoral and inæsthetic, and not one you can really emulate, anyway—it would be like trying to imitate originality. But such artists’ careers demonstrate that it is at least possible to move through this world unswerved by its capricious granting or withholding of approval. They’re examples, good or bad, to their fellow artists as we all feel our blind, groping way forward—or, sometimes, back—through the dark of creation.

Kreider's closing metaphor on moving through "The dark of creation" is something that the richest creation requires returning to time and time again.

(Found while digging deeper on the always fantastic weekly newsletter by Austin Kleon, this week on writing.)