An Ode to Obscure, Underappreciated, and Misunderstood Artists

  I am a writer and a musician who has received no accolades or recognition of any kind.  Yet I continue on.  The reasons for this aren't always entirely clear.  It's frustrating sometimes.  I think it's basic human nature to want to be appreciated and validated.  We want others to recognize our brilliance.  But something occurred to me recently.  Wishing for the respect and admiration of others is actually a separate thing from needing to create.  The simple act of creation offers its own set of thrills and is ultimately what drives me to keep going whether I ever receive any recognition or not.
  Here's the thing:  Creating something is genuinely magical.  Where once there was absolutely nothing, now there is something.  Where does that something come from?  That is the divine mystery of creation.  I've often wondered in the past if all music or all stories exist somewhere out there in the cosmic ether and as artists we are somehow sensitive to receiving them.  People ask where you get your ideas and a lot of times it's not really clear.  A lot of the best stuff seems to just kind of flow on out of you.
  Any song, story, or piece of art you produce is, in essence, a gift from the universe to you.  When you sit down to write a story, for instance, you are asking the universe to give one to you, and if you're lucky, it does.  I'm not saying that it takes no work on your part.  You often have to ponder and sweat and piece things together and puzzle over them.  There's always tedious perfecting and correcting and tightening up and filling in the gaps.  But nothing beats that thrill of some new song or story or whatever being brought into existence.  And you're there to witness it's birth.
  That's the whole "creativity is its own reward" thing.  All the recognition and acclaim and all that rigamarole you may hope for is really its own different thing and would come much later, if it comes at all.  And really you're kind of just looking for an ego boost.  But if you change your perspective just slightly that aspect seems kind of silly.  If all songs, stories, and art already exist and we are merely transmitting them from the ether to this world, then ego doesn't enter into it and really we are seeking to be praised for being good transmitters.  You may as well praise a radio for doing a good job at transmitting its signal.
  There's one more thing that's kind of cool about being obscure.  You're actually special in your obscurity.  Lots of super successful artists actually lose ownership of their own creations, and not just in a legal sense.  The songs of the Beatles don't really belong to the Beatles so much as they belong to the world.  When you're obscure those songs or stories or whatever belong to you and only you.  I might not be a "successful" musician, but I know I've heard a whole lot of music that nobody else has, and that's actually pretty cool, when you think about it.