How novel a concept, to stay with yourself. To refuse to let a false label win, no matter how seductive, well-crafted, popularly received it becomes. You have the last word on who you are.

On the other side of creative aliveness, there is flatness. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, about what happens when our worlds go flat. The dynamism we lose, the emotional urges we suppress, the original impulses we become too afraid to nurture.

On the running path recently, a song came on. It was by Eminem. His music is not my choice for... See more