I think the guy means well and shares with us what he believes and what worked/works for him. If you think his call to invest your energy into something you enjoy equals encouragement for you to try and become a famous pop musician that’s on you. If you take his word as gospel that’s on you. Here’s a guy who’s telling us what worked and works for him, my first impulse is to say “thank you for sharing” - what comes after is up to me.
I don’t believe in the “follow your dream” gospel, for one because I don’t believe that “dreams” are neceesarily much better than lived reality, but also because for many of us, our “dreams” tend to be wildly naive and predominately not even our own, ie injected into us by pop culture and media. I mean how many kids’ dream is it to become a “football player” a “famous musician” a “movie star” etc…it’s bullshit. I wanted to be a professional basketball player as a teenager, spent most of my energy to get there, got there sort of, had to quit due to injuries and later realised that dream was actually more a social idea I took on for myself than “my own deepest-to-self-true dream.”
That said, each of us is responsible for themselves, obviously, so it’s my job to apply some intelligence to the advice I receive, test it, learn from it, and make up my own mind eventually. We alone are responsible for the teachers we choose to “follow” / the advice we choose to take.
I think his message is overall a fairly positive one, including the one in contention, even if I don’t love the wording of it. In essence he’s telling us “dare to follow your inclenations” — I think that’s great advice in a society where by the age of 17 you have to decide “what you are going to be” and most education is focussed on fitting in and functioning in accordance to expectations rather than truly enabling exploration of mind, body and world snd self - which Rick Rubin is mostly asking us to do.
I had a precariate background, left home at the age of 15, lived on the streets for a while…and certainly in those moments of hardship I was nourished and encouraged by those who advised me to not give up, face my fears, dare something new or different and meet life so luck could strike me too. Now will this work for everyone? Certainly not. But it’s much better advice in my book than something along the lines of “you’re in a difficult situation? Well guess what buddy, life sucks and you’re fucked so just try to not completely lose your shit and that’ll be good enough.” Not to say that “good enough” is not “good enough” but I don’t feel Rick Rubin ever says that, he just tells you “if you don’t feel right or good where you are, dare to make changes.”
I think it’s partially also confirmation bias (since we’re talking bias) to push this sort of simple yet challenging message aside, along the lines of “I’ve already made up my mind that this is the best I can do so don’t mess with my arrangement here.”
Now how each of us lives their life is up to each individual alone, but it’s worth mentioning that “sufficing” is also not much “saner”, more “realist”, more “honest”, more satisfying life advice — it also just can be mad cowardly and disrespectful towards one own talents and faculties.
Should you bet your house on your new track breaking through and making you the star of the next Super Bowl half time show? I wouldn’t advise it. On the flipside though be aware, as my wife says so beautifully, if you defend your limitations, you’ll get to keep them.
Balancing those two extremes is up to each of us, not Rick Rubin.
