Unfortunately, the human species has been known to cut others down for their own personal gains. It's an interesting thing to watch, but an even more interesting thing to be part of. In saying this, I don't mean it's fun to deal with someone who's trying to cut you down, I simply mean that going through something like that will teach you a lot about yourself and the other individual. However, the area where it affects me most in my life is the art world.
Artists who don't support other artists are, quite frankly, jealous and afraid. If you're not willing to be open or to help anyone out it's obvious that you might have some personal issues. Watching as a third party member, artists who don't teach or help other artists seem to have this idea that if they help someone else that the other person might "steal" whatever it is that they find so individualistic about their work. In my experience and from discussions with colleges and co-workers alike - there's a trend amongst these kinds of people.
I have no doubt that I will discuss this a number of times (and have touched on it in the past), but if you have experiences that are similar or just have concerns I invite you to talk about it below. I am not free from blame of this either. Looking to my past there are times where I didn't feel ok with sharing or felt alright with helping another because it seemed to make me uneasy. Whether it was their personality or I was judging their intentions with my work, I was very cautious. I was so cautious that at times I came off as rude.
Don't get me wrong - I may never share all of my secrets (or remember them for that matter), but simply shutting people out of a situation or cutting them down for no reason at all is not something you will see me intentionally do.
What's so wrong with having more artists in the world anyway? It's all about perspective.
-CS
