#137: When to give up on a dream

Also: quitting Instagram and making art

Good morning!

Welcome back to Dear Baby. Today I’ll be answering three questions: on knowing when to give up on a dream, the benefits and drawbacks of getting off social media, and how to share writing (or any creative work) when you suspect you’ll change and eventually hate whatever you’ve done. As someone who once wrote about the “powerful” color of Hillary Clinton’s red pantsuit during the 2016 primary, I have a lot to say here.

On Dear Danny this week, we’ll be answering questions about how soon is too soon post-breakup to get into a new entanglement, what to do about a friend’s bad marriage, dealing with a forgetful mom, navigating a family member who wants money, and what to do when you’re 37 and still haven’t found your “thing.” Ep drops Tuesday at 9am! As always you can write in your questions here or call 802-404-BABY to leave us a voicemail.

1. On knowing when to give up

“I'm writing because I might be having something of an existential crisis. I think, after chasing it for 15 years, I'm reaching the point where I'm willing to give up on my dream. The dream was to be able to tour with my music internationally and have an audience large enough to sustain the project. My image of success is one that I've created myself, so in that way I'm creating my own unhappiness, but chasing that dream has also been my fuel for so long.

I live in a tiny country, Belgium. Times are weird (in general), but I've really seen the music sector change drastically in the last ten years. In three weeks I'm releasing my third full album. But after releasing the first three 'singles' from that upcoming album, I'm actually feeling depleted and defeated already, while I'm trying to keep up with the non-stop demands for content on social media. (I only have 1080 followers, but it seems like all the players in the sector expect you to do some promo magic by yourself.) I do have a booking agent and a small record label, people I really like, but they also seem tired of fighting for attention and trying to compete with the bigger fish in the sea. And then I feel guilty that they have to bump into all those walls for my project. And all the rejections...they get under my skin. So many gatekeepers you must depend upon.

Even though I know there are thousands of artists like me who want the same thing, I feel like a total failure. Maybe I expected too much, pumped myself up with optimism, thinking my moment now would come, with this album, to really get a significant step further. But I feel like I'm failing myself, my dream, and those who believe(d) in me. I'm so frustrated and really don't like myself like this. It's been hard to find my center or flow or trust. So Haley, tell me, when do you know it's time to give up on your dream?” 

Love x

Echo Beatty

I’m sorry you’re feeling so defeated right now, it’s palpable. If I were to guess, you did some fantasizing about the impact these singles might have on your life, and so the fact that not much has changed since you released them has served to highlight, once again, the gap between your imagination and reality. This is a microcosm of the larger narrative playing out with your music career—a parade of unmet expectations—which is why drastic measures are carrying a certain appeal. If you can never achieve your version of success, why try for anything at all?

First of all, your frustrations sound totally reasonable. I believe without proof that the music industry is a PR game that rewards clout and cynicism before talent and spirit. I can see how it would be depressing to spend so much time on a piece of art only to turn around and have to sell it to a jaded population that’s only interested in being entertained in 15-second intervals. Perhaps a useful reframing of this moment is that you’re not failing to achieve your dreams, but rather reckoning with what exactly your dreams entail. Obviously the industry has changed a lot, but from what I hear, it’s always been a little gross. Maybe you were going to reach this point no matter what.

The second-most popular notion about dreams, after the one that says we should follow them, is that the day-to-day reality of achieving them feels different than we expect. For so long your idea of success as a musician was to tour internationally and not have to do any other work to support that. It sounds like a very nice dream. But you’re 15 years older now—you have new information about what that life will require of you. You’re not sure you’re willing to give what it will take, or have what it will take. That’s a sobering thought, but it’s not exactly a sign of failure. It’s a sign that your real self is rubbing up against your idea of yourself. This happens to all of us eventually.

What would it look like to be a musician who didn’t tour internationally, or who had to work a little on the side to support herself? What would it look like to invest time and energy in your art without the hope of achieving commercial (or at last niche/indie) success? I’m not suggesting there’s no hope for achieving your original goal, but as a sole motivator, it’s inadequate. I totally get why “making it” has served as fuel for you, but it’s running out, and there are other, more sustainable types of fuel. You might need to shape some ambitions for yourself that rely less on luck and industry power-brokers over which you have no control. You might need to return to what called you to make music in the first place, before you ever considered you could tour internationally. Callings are different from career dreams—they suggest sustained action, rather than black-and-white achievement. All a calling requires is that you listen to it.

Maybe this album will take you to a new level of monetary success, maybe it won’t. What if your future wellbeing didn’t hang in the balance of that binary, but instead turned on your ability to continually reassess what feels meaningful to you and steer your life towards new versions of that? There are so many possibilities between one end of the spectrum (“making it”) and the other (“giving up”). There are so many ways to be an artist. All of them will involve weathering dry spells and stretches of self-doubt, but they’re not all contingent on self-commodification and kowtowing to gatekeepers. You’re allowed to decide how much of that you can bear. You’re allowed to set your own rules around what success looks like. You’d sooner fail by letting someone else choose.

2. On quitting Instagram

“Might be a goofy question, but what do you do now that you are off of Instagram? I find myself in a constant delete-and-redownload loop with the app. I want to stay up to date but I also don’t love being on there for so long. As soon as I delete it, I do feel good, but can’t help but feel a little bored on occasion. It’s not like Instagram is that stimulating but it does sometimes help to defeat the boredom feeling. Any recommendations? And also what made you decide to get off of the app? Do you still use it?”