Some years ago I wrote a “road less taken” entry encouraging people not to measure their worth against the progress others have made by quoting a passage from Joseph Campbell recounting a story about the start of the Holy Grail quest:

‘They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the forest at the point that he himself had chosen, where it was darkest, and there was no way or path.’

“No way or path! Because where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path.”

Much of what I said in that entry stands, but there is the practical side of me that says such idealism is all well and good, but hacking a new path through the forest is tough work. Who is doing the hacking? Has someone been hired to help? Who is paying, feeding and sheltering them? How are they supporting themselves?

Are villagers following them, donating to support their holy endeavor or are they scoffing at them for blazing a trail to places no one in the community is particularly interested in traveling?

Grail quests are fine when it comes to the individual but get increasingly complicated the more people you start to get involved.

The one advantage non-profit arts organizations have over the grail seekers is that there was only one goal for the latter to pursue. Arts organizations can choose from many grails and myriad paths to tread that others have not.

The lessons of my initial post still stand, however. When a quest is lead by a committee, it is easy to get bogged down with discussions about changing the focus of the quest and taking what appears to be an easier, well traveled, path given the wear and tear of the last few years on people and equipment and what supplies remain.

It is easy to be distracted (and almost seduced) by false representations of success if you don’t have people to keep you on track.

As I was looking back in my archives for some content to post about, I came across Dan Gioia’s 2007 commencement address at Stanford.

He acknowledges there had been a little controversy about his choice as commencement speaker due to his lack of celebrity.

If you weren’t aware he was the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003-2009, you may have proven his point.

He notes that at one time, public figures came from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines.

Fifty years ago, I suspect that along with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax, most Americans could have named, at the very least, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Not to mention scientists and thinkers like Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, Margaret Mead, and especially Dr. Alfred Kinsey.

[…]

The same was even true of literature. I first encountered Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman, and James Baldwin on general interest TV shows. All of these people were famous to the average American—because the culture considered them important.

Gioia doesn’t entirely blame the fickle nature of the media and general public:

Most American artists, intellectuals, and academics have lost their ability to converse with the rest of society. We have become wonderfully expert in talking to one another, but we have become almost invisible and inaudible in the general culture.

It started me thinking that perhaps things have improved marginally since 2007 given that astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson has developed a profile as a public figure.

Now as we move into 2016, I was thinking that between the current thought that artists need to embrace more entrepreneurial practices and the fact that control of media and communication channels are so decentralized, it may be possible for a wider array of artists and intellectuals to realize success investing more effort increase their profile.

It may not necessarily be “themselves” that they need to put forth

Dali may have received recognition for his talent as a visual artist, but he also cultivated DALI! as a separate persona from Salvador Dali.

Similarly, there is the Lady Gaga who wears skirt steaks as a skirt who is slightly different from the Lady Gaga that sings Sinatra and duets with Tony Bennett who is different from Stefani Germanotta.

Granted, sustaining those persona takes a lot of will, energy and time and not everyone is interested in that. Nor do they necessarily need to.

For 2016 it will be enough to resolve to raise your personal profile among those who live around you. Raise awareness among those who don’t know you, let those who do, know you better.