Whether 'Tis Nobler...

To stick to your guts and create art that nobody that cares about now but might make a huge difference later or keep your aesthetics elastic but the impact you want your art to make on others fixed. That is the question.

...and boy, is it a doozy. Briefly, I'll explain the merits of both positions as I see them, and then which one I support.

First: Sticking to your guts.
The upside is that, obviously, you never know what people are going to need ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now. Maybe the art that you create doesn't mean anything to anyone but you now, but it could still change the life of someone you've never met. Don't you owe it to that hypothetical person not to change your art? Don't you owe it to yourself not to change your art?

It's a very romantic position, to me. It assumes that what you create will outlast you, and that what you create does have the power to move people, it just has to find the right people. And there are plenty of examples of people whose work didn't mean anything to anyone until their death. Just ask the guy who wrote A Confederacy of Dunces.

Second: Adapting your art to reach people now
Big upside here is that it's a much more manageable process, and you can measure whether you're doing it well or not. You also have the option of choosing your audience, of saying "I want this group of people to realize this" and then figuring out how to do it. Your work is also much more likely to reach future generations, since if you're successful it will be produced and reproduced in spades, and is thus much more likely to wind up in the hands of someone ten, twenty, a hundred years down the road.

It's a more practical position, I think, and a more selfless position. You're not saying, "I know what art is," you're saying, "I want to help people in this way, and this is how I can do it." Of course, there's also the downside of knowing if you've failed. If your art doesn't reach its target audience, you may die knowing that, and that would suck.

Personally, I go with the second position. It just seems like there's a lower probability of self-aggrandizement and losing touch with reality, with what you really mean to do. If you tell yourself "This thing will be great someday, I know it" for long enough, you may wind up lying to yourself just to keep the dream alive. And while that's alright for you, it doesn't do much for anyone else, and it certainly doesn't do anything for your art.

Just my personal opinion.