Part of it's the need to keep a sense of proportion: duty is one thing, becoming a pain in the arse another. The world is full of people who, because they take themselves and everyone else seriously, fail to remember that they are all human, fallible, and thereby the cause of an infinite number of pratfalls which make far more people merry - if they'll allow themselves to be. But no, they shut themselves up in their own little world of pain and isolation, and it's part of the folksinger's art, above all else, to break that apart. But to get through we have to have been there, and so a bit of that kind of experience is cash in the bank!