Yo-Yo Ma – HuffPost 10.24.13

Mike Ragogna: Too beautiful. Yo-Yo, what advice do you have for new artists?

Yo-Yo Ma: Look for where the real needs are. Respond to need. No matter how great a society is, people fall through the cracks. Where are the cracks? Where are the edges? Artists are incredibly sensitive people, that means sometimes, we have a harder time because sometimes, their antenna are out and receiving all kinds of information that they need to do something about. When they do something about it, obviously, they need to find ways of self-expression. Dig deep into yourself in order to come up with your voice but then make sure you come out of yourself so that you actually attach yourself to the wide world and you can look at what the world is missing and use your sensitivity to not only identify it but then start to express and show a way forward, meeting those needs that are not being met. I think artists have always done that. I think that’s another way of putting that in a way that is not self-referential, as in, “That’s me, I need to be heard,” but rather it’s art for life’s sake. It’s really art for looking around at the living and seeing what the living need.

MR: And there we are back at “Art for life’s sake.”

YYM: That’s my advice for myself, anybody that wants advice, a younger person, or whoever because that’s always changing and you’re never competing for top dog, “I am bigger than you.” It’s not about the baubles, it’s really about how deeply you meet those needs. That is always individual. I think we can practice that and we’ll be happier. We’re miserable when we compare ourselves to others and yet we are totally a measuring and comparative society.

MR: Yeah, or more crudely put, a locker room society.

YYM: Exactly! And you do that when you have nothing better to do. You become a bully because you can. It does nothing to contribute to something constructive.