Art and fear

Just rediscovered Seth Godin's free e-book "What matters now" from December of last year (that's 2009).

From Seth's opening essay:

It turns out that the connected economy doesn’t respect this natural instinct. Instead, we’re rewarded for being generous. Generous with our time and money but most important generous with our art.

If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved.

Art can’t happen without someone who seeks to make a difference. is is your art, it’s what you do. You touch people or projects and change them for the better.

And from the one right after that, by Anne Jackson:

Until Fear is gone, (and realize he may never completely leave) make the decision to be courageous. The world needs your story in order to be complete.

The last sentence in particular stuck with me. The world needs your story in order to be complete. If you believe otherwise, you're selling yourself short.