Fame is not what it seems
Sup Steem punks & Steem princesses!
It is the 2018 "American Dream" to be come rich and famous!
As a kid I wanted to be on stage in one way or another. I grew into becoming a musician chasing the dream of one day being famous on big stages. Sex with beautiful women all the time, the best parties ever, and all the money for anything I could ever want. Living the lavished lifestyle of a "Rock Star". This was my "American Dream".
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Reality sets in.
I played in many music projects throughout my music career. As I was playing music I was studying heavily. Studying music theory to better myself as an artist. Studying music business to turn these projects into something that I can make a living from. I spent years studying, creating plans, and executing these plans.
I got lucky throughout my journey and did some really fun things. In the middle of all the fun, I began doing event coordination for the stars. The famous people(I must say, half of them I didnt know prior to working with) that people would lose their mind seeing me in pictures with famous people. I was able to see insight to what my future looked like. This is what I was to be doing at the fullest of my success.
Day in and day out I would travel with these artists. Whether I was performing alongside them, doing management for them, or just hanging at a party... I was working toward my "American Dream!"....but there was a problem.....
This was not as glorious as it seemed!
Traveling the country and being a touring artist, even on a successful level, was nothing to brag about. This misconception is amazing to me now that I am on the other side of things. If we are going to be real it is actually a shit show.
The amount of work that is put into this is incredible. It takes a special kind of person. This lifestyle, believe it or not, is one of the most lonely that a career can ever give you. How can you be famous and lonely you ask? Well, thats an easy answer. When you are famous EVERYBODY wants to be your friend. They will tell you everything you want to hear just to be in with you. They will give you things and lie to your face to make you happy. As pleasing as this may sound, it is actually extremely mind altering. This will change people in a not so positive way. Whether it is to sprout them with depression having them turn to drugs/alcohol/suicide.... or they cant find a stable relationship because the women they are dating only see you as someone they are making social gains or financial gains with. These things will play a huge role in making you lose your mind.
Traveling around to do tours maybe seem awesome! You get to see every single city you could dream of.. WRONG... Well sort of.. Let me explain. When an artist is on tour, it is usually managed very well. They will have times for everything. Time for food. Time for meet and greet. Time for show. Time for bus call. Everything is really well scheduled. Let me use an example to show you how there is the misconception that this is actually not as good as it seems.
So lets say you pull into New York for a show and you make it there at 2Pm. The sound check for your show begins usually at 4PM so you will need to warm up and prepare for that. After sound check is meet and greet at 5Pm. This might last an hour or two. By 9pm you are expected to perform. This might last an hour and a half MAX. By that time its about 11 or midnight and you are hungry. So you eat. Bus call is at 1Am and you are driving to the next city. You want to catch some sleep so you rest up... by the time you make it to the next city, the cycle restarts. Good luck seeing the city like you dreamed.
The reality.
The reality is that most people want comfort. They dont want to be rich or famous. They want to come to a comfortable home and be able to eat good food. They need love and compassion in their lives to feel complete. They need REAL friends and true interactions with humans for mental stability. This is all stuff that will be suffocated from you when it comes to the music industry. As I said before. Some people live for the type of lifestyle required to be a famous musician. I wish they knew the truth . Jim Carrey said a quote about how he wishes everyone could be rich and famous.... Just so they could know that it inst for them. The fame game will eat you alive if you let yourself become a victim of it. This pertains to not only chasing this dream, but also living it. You will come to find out that the dream...is actually a nightmare.
Thanks @drpuffnstuff for hosting such an awesome competition!
If anyone is interesting in joining us on this inspirational journey.. check out his post here:
https://steemit.com/challenge/@drpuffnstuff/life-lessons-challenge-share-your-most-profound-life-lesson-with-us-20-sbd-for-rewards
Although not an artists myself, I can only agree with you. Being an artists/musician and in the spotlights on the road travelling the world, looks nice from te outside, but is hard work and probably leaves no time to experience all the places one travels to. I used to travel a lot in my Telecommunication/IT job, around the globe, same story though; People were sometimes even jealous at me for this opportunity I got, but the reality was that I hardly got any experience from any country or city, other than: taxi, hotel, restaurant, customer, taxi, plane. And I had platinum level frequent flyers, for nine years in a row, so can you imagine the amount of travel I did? :)
Airports and hotels are like a personal hell when you travel a lot haha. The experience is cool. I am sure you were able to experience all types of things people cant even dream of though.
Owww sure, even when spending time in a taxi, one can see the country as it passes by the taxi window. When sitting with the customers, one can get a hint of what the social culture is about. When one sits in a restaurant, one get a flavour of local food. And when one walks from hotel to restaurant, one can get some more street experiences. So yes, all in all I saw and experienced a lot, saw rich places, saw very very poor places, met obnoxious people, and met really really nice people. Saw a lot of sh*t, but also saw how people are able to deal with the (mostly) poor situations they are in (think of poor African countries).
I know im late commenting. Just getting around to judging so I get to read all the entries. I read this the other day but was just digesting it before I commented and forgot. I have heard enough about this to understand its true. I like hip hop and rap and tech n9ne has a song that helped me understand this concept without ever being there myself, though only second hand understanding. This song is comparing being an artist on the road doing shows to the rain.