The first topic in this roundtable on the Portair podcast was self-concern versus egolessness and that learning to co-exist with self-doubt creatively leads to more authentic experience. We also discussed how: self-concern Is typically not very objective; metaphorical and symbolic levels of significance in works and art entrain vast networks of significance and meaning beyond our conscious grasp; the ‘listener’ co-creates the artwork and that ‘the song you (the artist) like the least will be more most popular song’; the artist is like a conduit for life experience and how experiences ‘write us’; how crippling self-doubt and lack of confidence can be to someone’s talent; and how creative process and evolution act as an analogue for each other: just try and do and some of it will catch fire and that creativity is about ‘finding the diamond in the rough’.