There are few things more ego-threatening than trying to succeed as a creative type. Whether you’re looking for someone to publish your manuscript or just seeking a full-time job, you are in competition with hundreds, if not thousands, of other people. You will measure yourself against them and find yourself lacking. You will be rejected, again and again, until you think you’re numb to it, and then you’ll get rejected again and realize it still hurts. On the off-chance you succeed, you’re rewarded with a giddy rush of endorphins, followed by the realization that you’re still just one person in a crowd of millions.
I internalized this before I even started trying to make a career out of writing. This sounds like a healthy attitude, but honestly I think it’s done more harm to me than good. It resulted in me feeling the need to apologize for my desire to be a writer: self-deprecating jokes, going “yeah, I know” when I told people I was an English major, the whole bit. I didn’t want people to think I was delusional; I didn’t want people to think I actually believed I had a chance. But if I didn’t believe that, then what the hell was I doing? How could I succeed if I assumed I was doomed from the start?
I now realize that I was just trying to pre-emptively wound my ego before the real world got around to it, and it’s the same impulse that powers Hannah Ashcroft’s “Little Consequence”. Ashcroft may be a musician and not a writer, but on “Little Consequence” she deals with the same issues I’ve just detailed: anxiety, insecurity, and the constant pressure to make something of yourself. And her coping mechanism, just like mine, is to rigorously deflate her own ego.
If I’ve talked about myself too much in this review, it’s only because “Little Consequence” hits so close to home. Backed by her band and surrounded by strings that are both lush and discordant, Ashcroft methodically tells a young creative, “young of mind and faint of heart,” everything they don’t want to hear. It’s not working out. They’re trapped in a job they hate. It’s too late to fix their past mistakes. Nobody’s out there to look after them and make sure it all turns out OK. Ultimately, they’re of “little consequence.” She could be singing to someone else, or maybe about herself. Either way, it’s bruising stuff.
“Little Consequence” is hardly an uplifting song. I’d probably burst into tears if someone told me these things, and the eerie warble of the strings suggests a naive dream turning into a nightmare. But it’s not an unkind song, either, and if you look carefully you might find a path forward through the barbs. If, as Ashcroft suggests, no one is paying attention to the young creative, then what reason do we have to censor ourselves? Why make ourselves small and appeasing and shame ourselves for our ambition? You can’t control how the world receives you, but you can control what you put out into the world; and hey, anything could happen, right? Right?
