Eschewing Celebrity: Neil Armstrong's Lesson for Artists

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We, in music, are fond of calling ourselves artists, to credit ourselves with creativity. At the heart of things, we are in show biz, and that conveys a wholly different set of images.
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The most successful musicians gain acclaim. That imparts celebrity. That leads to certain groups of people wanting, obsessively, to know about us, our lives, preferences, passions, and things that most of us would rather keep private.
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When he became the first human to set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, NEIL ARMSTRONG became an instant celebrity. Except he rejected the celebrity mantle for the rest of his life.
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Icon of exploration? Yes. The real Captain Kirk? Yes, considering he had to manually land the Apollo 11 Lunar Module on the moon after its overloaded computer failed, and the craft was descending into dangerous terrain. Armstrong took the controls and literally TOOK control, finding a safe place to land with nearly all the fuel gone and outside the allowable limits of what NASA's "mission profile" was designed to allow.
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He could have made a lot of that. He could have allowed others to trumpet it and inflate his celebrity-mantle and get product endorsement deals and all the other things that celebrities get to line their pockets and increase their cachet as celebrities to be pursued, invasively, as public property.
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A year after Apollo, he quietly took a job as Professor of Engineering, not at MIT or Harvard or Caltech, but in Cincinnati, in his home state of Ohio. There, as a teacher, he made a difference in the lives of his students, as all teachers have the power to do.
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As artists, we hope we can inspire others to aspire to great things, to attempt something life-changing, or simply to put those who hear our music in a better place, a happier state of mind from which better things happen and a better world is possible.
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Sometimes artists chase fame. At those times, Neil Armstrong's words are worth remembering:
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“I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer,” he said in February 2000 in one of his rare public appearances. “And I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession.”
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We all sense that we never really knew Neil Armstrong, who died Saturday at the age of 82. Yet, maybe we did. When we identify with the enduring pride of a professional and a personal life of meaningful accomplishment, rather than seizing an opportunity to make our lives about some exploitable moment, then we know the greatest legacy of Neil Armstrong.
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