Conflicts of Good Advice

I have been given a lot of advice over the years...

My two favorites pieces are both wonderfully vague and ambiguous, just as truly good advice often is.

They are: 

"Be kind" 

"Be authentic"

But what happens when two really great pieces of advice come into conflict with one another?

Let me expound...

A friend of mine recently created some art(I mean this in the most general way possible)  He was quite proud of it and clearly had put in a great deal of time and effort into this endeavor.  He proceeded to go on Facebook and, with appropriate pride, ask everyone to behold said art and to offer their respective opinions.

Like a good friend, Facebook or otherwise, I did.

It was bad....like...really bad.  I don't posture to be an artist or to be an expert in art.  Hell, I routinely ask you poor people to read my feeble attempts at humor in much the same way.  But as least I know it's bad, whereas I doubt the friend in question knew the depths of this suckiness.  To make matters even worse....He asks ME specifically for "feedback."  Which is to say that he wanted ME to tell him how awesome it was.

So here's where the advice thing gets tricky....I could "be kind" and tell him how awesome it was and how moved I was by his effort.  None of this is patently false, of course, if by awesome you mean terrible.  

Or I could be "authentic" and tell him the truth.  No sugar coating, just honesty.  

Which is what I did...and it went...badly.

"Geez man, you could've just said nothing." Was, minus a few explatives, the response which I got to my "authentic" feedback.

So, there you have it....all my pondering...for naught.