Getting started in the arts is hard. There’s the work involved, which, if you really feel a passion for it, takes time, energy, research, planning and a certain amount of faith. Will anyone get what you do? Will anyone like it?
You sit by yourself for hours at a time. An artist works in solitary confinement in the hopes that he will, some day, communicate with someone else. He may never even see that other person, or hear from him. He may never know that the communication happened.
It makes you realize how undervalued simple human things can be. The person who takes an extra minute on the phone to not just “process your call,” but help you. The person who reaches out to tell you your work touched him, or her. Meant something.
In the end, we are social animals, even introverted artists who work like hermits in their cells. We want to make contact, be seen, be valued, be heard. Or even just smiled at, over the phone. The little things count, and they always will. The world becomes more technical, but we are still human.