How can I trust what anybody else stands for if I don‘t know what I myself am about? It‘s true that if people generally approve of what I‘m saying, it is easier to believe that what I‘m saying has worth. But when they stop approving, where will that leave me? Unable to ascertain whether or not what I have to say has any validity? I have to get a sense of my motives beyond the blinkered duality of approval or disapproval. It doesn‘t define me. I was born fallible and I‘ll die fallible, just like everyone else, no matter how much goes right or wrong in my life.

Problem is, I left my creative compass to rust while I navigated life by other people‘s standards, and now, when I really need it, it‘s stuck and I don‘t know which way to go.
I must know myself outside of what I produce, because who I am has got nothing to do with what I am capable of generating, what I fail at or what I achieve. Everybody fails. Life itself is failure: eventually, it ends. That doesn‘t make it any less powerful.

Kae Tempest / On Connection