I enjoy Joseph Campbell's work and writing. He always inspires the artist to be brave and live by the strength of their own convictions, even if it goes against the sentiments of prevailing society. Here is a quote from his book "Hero with a Thousand Faces:"
"The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence within whom is is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. 'Live,' Nietzche says, 'as though the day were here.' It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so everyone of us shares the supreme ordeal - carries the cross of the redeemer - not in the bright moments of his tribe's great victories, but in the silence of his personal despair."