Something I love about the philosophy of the Greeks — in particular stoicism — is the concept I’ve heard both Aurelius and Seneca express: that one of the best things to do is to act according to one’s own nature, and to do so unapologetically.
Of course, a major part of this is to firstly get to know and understand one’s own true nature, through whatever means possible (I’ve found writing in a journal to be, by far, the best way of doing this). A major objective here is to examine one’s own thoughts, considering what one appears to like or enjoy and asking whether the do so because they truly like it, or because the masses, or the influential people in their culture/environment like it, leading to the unconscious absorption of this value.
The methods I’ve found best to do this process is to simply ask questions like, ‘what do I think about x?’ Or, ‘is that really how I feel, or what I believe?’ And, when something is bothering me, I immediately go into the journal and unpack it thoroughly — often writing about the topic for over 2000 words. I write fairly openly and freely (this document is actually straight out of my journal, with some light editing). Through doing this, I become more aware of my true position and views on the particular subject, leading me to more thoroughly understand my true nature. These subjects can be major political things happening out their in the world, or ‘smaller’ things, like something someone said to me or that I overheard, or even just a film or piece of music. The whole process is for me to examine my experience, each day, in depth. It does take time, but it is by far the best practice or habit I have gotten into. By far.
Once an individual understands their true nature more deeply (it’s not like anyone can ever get to a state of truly understanding their true nature 100%!), they can then feel aware of it, accepting of it, and do things that align with it.
For me, this has been embracing my love of music, but also — and perhaps most importantly — what types of music I love. This has been the biggest thing for me over the past few months: identifying that, in fact, I don’t really love writing dance music anymore, anywhere near as much as I used to. I do like writing music with beats and pulse, but not the dance music I found myself so drawn to in my 20s (I’m now 33).
Nowadays, I like listening to and creating music that is experimental, explorative, ‘weird’ and left-field; stuff no one has heard before. All of these things align with my desire to explore things beyond and away from what is conventional. I really like writing this type of music, and I find I get really drained writing music that doesn’t really align with my tastes and values.
And a major thing for me has been to pull away from what I felt that I should be writing. Why did I feel like I should be writing specific types of music? Because a) they would bring more attention due to a more mass appeal, b) they would bring in more money, c) it’s what is deemed as ‘cool’ to write, and d) because I wanted to be seen as someone who wrote that type of music. All of these are clearly the worst reasons to write a particular piece of music.
What happened in my late 20s was that my taste changed and developed, but my reasons for making music didn’t. Don’t get me wrong — I got into making music because I loved it, but there’s a lot of influence of values that happens when you transition from writing music for yourself and your love of the craft, to writing music in an industry. And so I was left with the sense of being pulled in two directions: as I saw it, I could write music that aligns with my tastes and get none of the above, or write music which I didn’t feel aligned with my tastes or values, but also enter the lottery of getting some of the above.
I can’t say that this situation was as easy to see then as it is to see now. In the moment, I just felt confused about why I wasn’t enjoying making music anymore — why, every time I sat down to make music, I would feel this resistance and confusing tension.
But I took some time off music in 2024, instead focusing on exploring things that I liked and found interesting through reading, and getting into reflective writing. In doing these, I changed how I saw creative practice. (Key words there: I saw. This change only came about through the regular writing practice I really committed to around this time, where, through the process outlined above, I began to see my tastes, values and nature, on the paper or screen, in more clarity.)
When I came back to writing my own music (not music written for clients), I felt like everything was so much clearer to me. I had continued to teach music all throughout this break, and so I was developing and exercising my theoretical understandings of the art, even if I wasn’t doing the same so much for my practical abilities. But when I did return, it felt like I knew so clearly what I should be doing in a piece, based on what I wanted to do — how I wanted sounds to emerge, evolve, coalesce, be arranged, present themselves, etc. And also, the music theory was so comfortably lodged and accessible in my mind because of my regular thinking and teaching about music, and also my listening to pieces and analysis. It was a great feeling to return to.
While I could more easily articulate my tastes and creative language though, I couldn’t entirely rid myself of the feeling that I might be ‘missing out’ on those potential gains listed above: clout, money, aligning myself with what was ‘cool’, and being seen as someone who writes ‘cool’ music.
Two things happened that quelled these issues:
First, as I began to release the music I found myself truly drawn to and aligned with — the more experimental sides of electronic music — I did begin to encounter the community of like-minded artists and fans who enjoy this type of music. I began to immerse myself with their ideas and values, seeing the community of artists that made things simply for the love of the craft, above all else.
The second thing was that, while this does make me slightly uncomfortable to admit, I also did feel motivated by seeing some money come in from this type of creative work. Though, it felt like honest money. It felt like a true transfer of value: I provided my honest and authentic art which I’m proud of, and I received money from listeners and artists who like what they hear. That feels far better than the idea of making and distributing something which has a primary intention of making money, rather than being an honest encapsulation of who I am as a human — with ideas, tastes, and values.
Here’s an idea I wish more people discussed:
Making money off of one’s art isn’t something to intentionally be avoided — that makes no sense. Making money honestly and authentically, to me, is a somewhat beautiful gesture between two humans simply exchanging value. I believe that the things which dictate the ‘goodness’ of this exchange are the nature of the things being sold (what they represent, why and importantly how they were made), and the ends for which they’ll be used.
The music I make and release nowadays is very different to what I made even five or six years ago. While there are aspects in it I’m still very proud of, that music was written through, or at least influenced by, a process of me trying to crack some code or formula. (I admit I even read a pretty terrible book called The Addiction Formula.) That music has done relatively well, and I am grateful to every listener who has listened to and bought my music. But I would say that the music I am writing today comes more truly ‘from the heart’.
It’s funny how I always looked at artists in their 20s, releasing music and blowing up, and thinking why some of them appear to just completely change tack and go in a completely different direction after around 8 years or so. I was always a little confused by it. These artists have it all, they clearly know what works — why throw it away by doing something different?
I also always felt like the time artists have in their ‘primes’ is decades and decades long. But, having been writing music for about 13 years now, I understand the fact that, quite simply, people drastically change. And if an artist’s true aim is to make work which encapsulates themselves truly, we must expect their work to also drastically change with them. That’s why I absolutely love Bon Iver’s output — it has changed so much, and explored so much territory, just as I’m sure Justin Vernon has also done as a human being. Expecting this not to happen is expecting creative people to be production lines, wanting to have more of exactly the same — more of that which has been proven to work, or at least developments on these formulae.
That’s simply not how humans work, and we can’t expect artists to adhere to them, if we are to expect artists to firstly be good human beings, and in turn, create work that expresses their ‘true nature’.