David Bowie once said:
"If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting."
Artists work at the edge of culture. We go out to the limits of what the culture allows and then ask, “well what if we take one step over the line?” Comedians are great examples of artists who work that line.
Our work is to produce things that help others do life better. We do life better when we go a little bit further than the prevailing conventional wisdom. All of the people that I have studied who did something worth something for someone else pushed the limit in some way.
You don’t need to look far to find the limit pushing artists in your life. My parents are one example of people who created work (parenting) that pushed the limits of the culture. You happen to be reading a byproduct of that push now.
Look to your own life for those people. Embrace those people as admired role models. Let their image push you to step a little further outside what is possible.