Does the audience come last?

Am I an artist or a service provider?

Hello fellow maker,

We’re told to either make what we love or make what sells, as if bending to the market or screaming into the void are the only ways to be. Lately, I’ve been having some real, slightly rebellious conversations about why that’s a lie.

Truly, one of the best things about this part of the book-writing process (*gestures to Making Time*) is getting on a mic and unraveling productivity culture in real time with brilliant people.

• OFF THE GRID with Amelia Hruby — Making Time: Creativity over Productivity
  🎙️ Listen here

• SCRATCH THAT with Rebekah Taussig & Caitlin Metz — Getting off the Conveyor Belt of Production
  🎙️ Listen here

• THANKS FOR ASKING with Nora McInerny— Stoptimizing: Life Beyond Productivity
  🎙️ Listen here

So much of creative life is framed as me vs. the audience — do I follow my instincts, or cater to what “works”? That’s exactly what today’s newsletter is about: breaking the false binary between making for ourselves and making for others.

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I’ll start with the ending: The Audience is Me. I Am the Audience.

The myth that I am separate has me warring with myself and others.

But let me back up.

For years, I wrestled with a question that felt existential:
Am I an artist or a service provider?¹

In one corner: inspiration, creative freedom, self-expression. Being, you know, satisfied on a soul level.

In the other: providing value, making something useful, being relevant and financially solvent. The first path leads to starving alone in a garret (with only good taste and self-respect for company). The other, reading the room and regurgitating the “pain points” of strangers on Instagram.

I used to think I had to pick a side — or worse, settle for an unholy compromise. Maybe you’ve felt this too.

It sounds like:
"I really want to write a memoir, but no one’s interested in stories like mine."
"The only way to make money is to speak to the lowest common denominator, so I guess that’s what I’ll do."

And then you hear Rick Rubin’s famous advice: “The audience comes last.”
Which, sure. But also — where is this audience, exactly? And what if my voice is hoarse from screaming into the void?

So you start asking: Am I an artist or something else? Am I making for me, or for them? Do I follow my instincts, or the market?

Here’s what I believe:

Trying to find the perfect balance between these — making enough concessions to land on an elusive middle ground — is a distraction. It comes from the Productivity Land myth that we are separate in the first place. Separate from the collective, from the center of relevance, from life itself.

So let’s take on the me vs. the audience binary one at a time.

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It’s About Me! Pure Self-Expression

Expressing yourself for the sake of it is indispensable. There’s a reason people do morning pages, dance wildly in their kitchens, and send unhinged voice memos to their best friends.

Creativity needs space to breathe. You have to air out your brain, clear the cobwebs.

But when I tell myself I’m choosing myself OVER an audience — "I’m just creating to express myself, that’s it!" (picture me glaring at imaginary gatekeepers) — I picture the energy of cornering some poor soul at a party, talking at them for 45 minutes straight.

Or worse, it’s like cracking open a pre-shaken Coke bottle. I AM EXPRESSED! MAYBE I’LL CLEAN UP THE MESS LATER!

That might feel cathartic in the moment, but it’s ultimately depleting. Because deep down, I still believe I’m alone.

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Making What the Market Wants

On the other side, there’s the idea that being in the market (any market, any exchange of ideas) means stepping outside yourself to meet someone else’s need because their desires are more real, more valid than what’s inside you.

When I started my coaching practice in 2018, the Business 101 playbook was clear: Identify the problem. Solve the problem. Be valuable.

Since I worked with creatives, the most obvious problem to solve was “How to overcome resistance, procrastination, perfectionism.” It made sense. That’s what people Google.

It’s also not the real problem. The real problem is our relationship to our humanity. And that work is far more nuanced, potent, and demanding than what your average promoted Instagram post serves up.

What people think they want (which is often just a reflection of what they’ve been told to want) is rarely what actually moves their soul.

We already know what is truly moving. Brilliant insights, connections, and ideas surface in us constantly, but we don’t take them seriously. We dismiss our real responses to life as irrelevant, inefficient, shameful, and unpopular.

Capitalist alienation sniffs:
"You’re moved by 16th-century lute music? Too bad. Got any takes on Taylor Swift?"
"You’ve thought deeply about the intersection of motherhood and religious trauma? Who cares. Parenting memoirs aren’t selling this year."

What do you think that internal dismissal does to us over time?

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The Audience Is You

I have no access to another person’s consciousness except through my own. Sorry, as much as it seems like we can mind-read our way to safety and success, that doorway is locked.

It reminds me of that viral phrase:
"Oh, you’re a people pleaser? Name three people who are pleased with you."

The moment I abandon the house of my own soul to serve others, as though they are standing at a distance from me, I get lost. I speak in half-truths. I become less generous, less confident, less decisive.

I cannot move anyone’s soul without listening to my own. It’s not me vs. them; it’s not a zero-sum game. The real work is to dig deep— deep enough to hit the underground collective well that nourishes all of us.

Every artist you love has done the same. You do this every time you trust your own depth as a portal to the universal.

Love,

Maria

1. This newsletter topic was inspired by a recent conversation with my new friend Amelia Hruby of Off the Grid and Softer Sounds.