Anyone who has been to the Grand Canyon can tell you how tiny and insignificant it makes you feel. Sometimes this sensation is received with pleased surprise and relief, and gaining the new perspective lets your spirit loose like an inside-out hug…other times, the feeling of smallness exacerbates an already existing feeling of smallness, making you feel smaller.
Few things are more obnoxious to me than indulging self-pity, especially artistically. I am among the first to jump up and admit that I have written many songs and drawn many pictures about What It’s Like To Be Me—some of them are even not terrible—but they’re all personal explorations which I’d like to think I’ve outgrown and gotten to the point where I can write about more important things, like shag carpet or war. The problem with ignoring these impulses to explore yourself, however, is that it makes you very anxious, uncreative, and subject to burst at the slightest provocation, sometimes in hapless company.
The good news is that sometimes your hapless company is solid and wise, and will sincerely explain that the impulse, albeit annoying, is honest, and deserves an honest nod. I think that most artists will acknowledge the wisdom in giving in to the impulse to expressing whatever it is that wants out of you.
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