The Perils of Authenticity

I cannot count the amount of times I’ve heard that in order to succeed you need to make things more digestible, more tasteful, more presentable.

“Who is your target audience”
“If you aren’t able to solve someone’s problem, why should they care what you have to say?”

I get it, I get it.

If I hope to one day make a living from my creative endeavors, if I hope to create some kind of impact on the world, however small, I should think about how I come across, and how to drive home a clear message. Something like that, right? Yeah, yeah, I know.

So then why are all my favorite artists and humans people who did things that defied all the theories and common sense on marketability and presentation?

I couldn’t figure it out for the longest time…how do some of the greatest and most respected artists manage to break all the rules and still manage to have an audience?

It couldn’t just be talent alone because for each successful artist who breaks the rules and succeed, you can find a million who fail. It couldn’t just be luck either, could it? There’s got to be a pattern there somewhere but it seems that nobody has cracked it, or maybe the answer is in plain sight but most of us don’t have the eyes to see it.

I think I finally understand it though. Something about being at the end of my rope, something about failing so many times that you have to really face the feel that you may just be a failure at the things you cared about the most. I think I can finally see why I’ve had such a hard time finding my audience over the years. (We’ll get there by the end)

The battle between authenticity and marketability kept me paralyzed throughout my teens and twenties. I did not think it was possible to be appreciated for who I really was, and I did not want to pretend to be something I wasn’t, or try to manipulate people into paying me or paying attention to me. After all, if art feels completely like work, why not just get an office job?

So I did….kind of. I work 4-5 hours a day, from home or cafes. I love the people I work with, I love the work too. Sometimes I wish I could take a break for a month or 3, and at times I find myself struggling to make enough to sustain these reasonable work hours.

I also find myself running into similar issues of wanting to be more authentic at work too….but at least this life style has removed the pressure of trying to earn a living from art and allowed me to create more for myself, and for the millions of “people like me out there”, all those imaginary people who I do not know for sure exist.

As much as I like my current gig, I still find myself wishing that I could spend all my time and energy writing novels, blogs, and songs, editing videos, creating podcasts that discuss culture and self exploration, all things I do anyway.…when I have time and energy leftover…

But I’m still not willing to compromise. I want to do what I want when I want to do it and how I want to do it.

Yes, I’m self indulgent!

That’s because so many of the people who have ever inspired me were self indulgent! They provided me with so much fuel, so much inspiration, all through being so self indulgent that they did stuff that no one around them understood at the time.

And so I dream of ways to finally be able to devote myself entirely to this work that I was too scared and insecure to devote myself to when I actually had the time and the opportunity. I dream of beating the system, of not having to try and cater to the masses or to limit myself to a specific niche that feels artificial. My people aren’t easily measured by demographics and keywords. I could describe them in a paragraph or two, but I couldn’t narrow them down to an identifiable category or tell you where they meet.

And so I’ve often wrestled over the idea that I might just be too a to allergic to certain practices, too stubborn or idealistic to ever be marketable. But then I remember those rare cases, the artists who aren’t super palatable, but who break through and become able to sustain themselves through their art.

I have a nagging feeling, a gut instinct that says I have what it takes to do it my way and still succeed. I can’t prove it to anyone because I am still working on it, but I’ve always felt it.

I feel that I am valuable enough as I am, without having to put any kind of awkward, uncomfortable, unnatural framing around what I do, without the pushy sales pitch. I feel that we are all valuable enough to earn a living doing exactly what we are inspired to do, as ridiculously idealistic as it sounds.

So then why is it so hard?

In my case, I discovered two things were lacking.

The first was complete and utter devotion. I was never fully devoted to my life as an artist, and that’s because I didn’t think it was possible. This limiting belief about how vulnerability and marketability were somehow at odds, comparing myself to others, and all the times I heard how hard it is to “make it” as an artist.

Fear kept me from going all the way and saying all the things I wanted to say. I worried so much about consequences. I struggled for a long time thinking I wasn’t good enough or that others wouldn’t understand. But I kept at it until eventually I felt that I was good enough and that maybe a few people might understand.

And still no one understood…

…and so I learned the second thing I was missing; the ability to enjoy the entire process and to make it fun.

If something doesn’t land, try something else. Anything goes if you enjoy it and it’s nothing anyone, right? Trying to get people to pay attention or to care about my work was never REALLY the thing I was so averse to, I just didn’t want that to influence the artistic process or the message behind my work.

And so I learned to get these ideas of out of the terms set by industry people, “branding” and “target audience” and started treated the goal of getting peoples attention and respect as a fun game that I could play on my own terms. I decided never to force myself to do something that didn’t feel real, but that I’d try anything and everything that felt right to me.

How can I get their attention and get them to understand what I’m trying to say in a way that feels fun and true? If one thing doesn’t work, I can try something else.

Ever since turning it into a game, the goal to reach more people and earn from my work feels more like part of the art itself. More importantly, it allows me to constantly get better at what I do.

No one was reading my novels so I started making vlogs to promote them. I learned how to edit videos in the process. Eventually I realized I could use those video editing skills to make my own music videos for my music. My camera skills weren’t great and I didn’t feel particularly inspired to put tons of time and effort into developing that, nor did I have the money for better equipment, so I learned how to use effects and am currently getting a sense for digital filters which are I hope make my second music video look a whole lot better than the first one.

When my blogs at INLEO were getting no attention, I started spending more time on trying to come up with titles, not with the attitude of wanting to trick people into reading, but because I felt I could do better, and maybe if I did better, more people would take notice. And more people did take notice.

When my shows started to feel boring because I didn’t have the time and environment to write new songs, I learned how to improvise and jam in order to have more fun performing. It wasn’t about impressing the audience but that was a nice side effect.

The only kind of marketing I do is leaning in to what excites me. I’m starting to feel it becoming a positive feedback loop.

If connecting people is something I love, then why not connect with people in order to reach a wider audience? If it were conditional, it would feel fake to me, but if I don’t have the expectation that they will become my supporters, connecting with people feels awesome and judging from many observations, it works better than anything these days.

Getting better at stuff you want to do feels good and it’s exciting. Challenging yourself is what allows you to grow as an artist and as a person. Now if my art isn’t hitting, I think about what I can improve, not by some demographics standards but by my own. Rather than trying to put on a mask that I think others will approve of, I lean in harder to what I am already doing and become truly vulnerable by finding what it was I was afraid of showing and showing it. I make it more real and more fun, more challenging or more vulnerable.

I ask myself what risks I am scared of taking and then push myself to take those risks.

It turns out that authenticity isn’t about trying to express some imagined static version of “Who I am”, but the art of constantly growing and the excitement that comes from the creative process, and at some point, that will just market itself.

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