Thoughts on Failure

Our society is increasingly obsessed with lenses of duality. Either things work, or not. Either we got accepted, or rejected. We are in an interesting state where social media and tech companies have radically shaped the ideals of success in order to benefit the few at the top.

I beat myself up for a while about my failed music career. But then I realized, the delta between being an artist and providing a living for yourself has never been larger. As our systems continues to prioritize automation and production at cost, artists are faced with the fundamental dilemma - the life affirming moments that brought us here are becoming a commodity. Musicians are being swallowed up into the content creator economy, which is a feature by design - not a bug.

Man, I really have to take some deep breaths when I think about this shit. It’s possible the music industry has always been this extractive. But psychologically this is a different beast - as consumers, we’ve never experienced being inundated by data and infinite supply. And as artists - dropping music means strengthening a model that likely won’t strengthen you financially.

Anyway, back to failure. And back to nuance. Vanity metrics used by large tech have incentivized and capitalized on distorted comparisons. It’s a spiral and a Shepard tone, where everyone can compare themselves to others and see themselves in a failed state. It’s natural selection in a world of limited resources. Vanity metrics and attention are the new forms of currency.

A byproduct of our obsession with success and failure is the illusion that we are in control of our fate. That there is a 1:1 mapping between effort and result. That if I do x like this person, I can achieve equal results. Outcome is far more nuance than this perceived causality. This was a liberating realization. If the goal is being someone else, I will always fail. Our perception of failure can then welcome a renewed shift in intentionality, and allow us to engage with creative work for the right reasons. I don’t want to be anyone else. I want to be me. And this, is a victory I'll gladly take.