Aubade #13 – The Price of Creative Success

My brother, John, sent me a video the other day. Do you know what Joni is like? – He’s my biggest skeptic and, at the same time, the healthiest medicine for my reality. He always tries to bring my dreamy, space-bound ideas back down to Earth. This video was the same – the dark side of artists, the price of success that nobody talks about: depression, loneliness, self-destruction.

I watch it and I see artists being crushed under the weight of their own fame. I see how personal pain is turned into a product for sale (hello, Bo Burnham), how your most sacred feeling becomes a stadium anthem (and you hate it, just as Thom Yorke hated “Creep”). I see how commercialism, the audience’s endless expectations, and the pressure of fame destroy everything that was real at the beginning.

And I think: “Damn, Joni is right.”

This video isn’t wrong. It’s not just an opinion; it’s a lesson written with history’s most painful examples. It says that creative ambition is a path at the end of which you either lose yourself or you lose the very reason you set out on that path.

And after realizing all this, the logical thing would be to close my laptop, delete all my unfinished projects, stay in a stable office job forever, and accept the reality where art is just a hobby for the weekends.

But…

This is where the video is wrong, and probably my dear brother, too. They are wrong not in general, but specifically – in relation to me. Because they are talking about a “success” that I am not looking for.

Their success is the masses. Millions of listeners, global recognition, the worship of a faceless crowd. For me, success is the Tribe. I don’t need a million people who just “like” my music. I need a few, even just ten people, who understand my work as deeply as I understood Jonathan Livingston Seagull. People who look at the sky like I do and dream of flying. The rest? The rest is just noise.

The video talks about commercialization as an inevitable evil. For me, money isn’t the goal; it’s a tool. A tool that will allow me to travel, see the world, collect stories, and then return to my studio and turn it all into music, visuals, words, and colors. My dream isn’t “fame.” My dream is to do what I was born to do, and not starve to death in the process.

And the most important thing: this video isn’t a stop sign. It is a map, on which all the dangerous sections and traps are marked. It’s not telling me “Don’t go,” but “Where you shouldn’t turn.” It teaches me balance. It teaches me how to protect my real “self” from the monster called “the industry.” How to create in a way that the process still gives me the same pleasure as when I used to draw piano keys on the table.

Life is about constantly generating goals and striving toward them. Not for greatness, but for the pleasure derived from the process. I am not looking for the final destination; I am looking for the path. And this path is my art.

So, thanks to Joni for sharing this video. To its creator – thank you for this lesson. It didn’t scare me; on the contrary – it made me stronger. Now I know exactly what to watch out for. I know exactly that my goal is not to build an empire, but a small, cozy house where I will live with my “Tribe.”

And I will build it. Even if it is the biggest and most beautiful “failure.”