working outside the echo chamber

Every effort must be yours and yours alone.  It must be what no one but you can do, what no one but you would do.  Of course it is frightening.  Of course borrowing seems easier—a surer route to a map-pinned destination, a fashion already vetted, a proven diagnosis and cure.

But in the end you must get on with the business of being your own true self.

It's the hardest thing art will ever ask of you.