When Does a Person Give Up, and When Do They Keep Going?

A reflection from the bike, the studio, and memories of a time when a music actually meant something.

Initial Anxiety

Today, I was hit by anxiety while riding my bike.
The question: what has to happen for music to become tradable again?
To have a system. Infrastructure. A market.

Then a reminder popped up: record something for Instagram.
A guitar reel. Show what I’m working on — I really don’t feel like doing it.
I don’t want to push out funny or desperate videos just to stay "algorithmically alive."

At the same time, I’m reminded I should post something on Patreon, something for Substack subscribers, send emails about upcoming gigs, promote the 7 Days to a Better Musician book, and by the way – I also have merch: T-shirts and hoodies with my paintings.
I don’t even know what else anymore.

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Imagining a Music Reset

After the ride, I recorded a guitar solo for Jonathan Crossley from Liverpool.
And a strange image kept looping in my head:
I climb a hill where the main cable for all music streaming runs — and I cut it.

And music goes down.
Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube... nothing. Silence.

Maybe CDs would come back. Maybe vinyl.
Maybe USB sticks with albums.
There’d be less music. But it would be more valuable.
No monopolies.
Maybe the market would reset.

And maybe in that silence we’d realize that we’ve actually been alone this whole time — surrounded by music, but disconnected from it.
Surrounded by sound, but without connection.
Maybe we’d actually start to listen for the first time.

Maybe that thought would even be worth going to jail for. (Humor.)

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Remembering the Value of Music

I didn’t solve it. Not the music problem, not the algorithm one.

But I remembered how things used to work.
And looking back now, it feels like a utopia.

You’d walk into a record store. Say hi.
Ask the clerk what’s new. You’d talk. They’d play you stuff.
They knew your taste. They’d recommend things you’d never find on your own.

I remember buying Bruce Dickinson’s The Chemical Wedding CD for my dad’s birthday.
It cost 500 korunas.
I was a teenager.

I used to sell vegetables at the market under Tesco from six in the morning to be able to afford that CD.
And then I’d listen to it on repeat.
Over and over.
Because it mattered.
That CD meant something.

And that whole system lived off it: critics, publishers, musicians, photographers, designers, sellers.
Today that world is gone.
Sounds like a fairytale. But it was real — a completely different world where physical music had value, and people naturally paid for it.
Now we scroll in algorithmic silence and expect music for free.

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Fripp and the Stages of Process

I also thought of Robert Fripp.
He says every process has a beginning, middle, and end.
And each of those has its own three parts – beginning, middle, and end.
Nine stages in total.

The hardest is the middle of the middle – the point where you can’t go back, but can’t move forward yet.
He calls it the liminal zone.

I think I’m just past that point.
It’s not easy, but there’s no way back.
The whole thing is in motion and needs to be completed.
Not by inertia, but with intention.

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Maybe Humanity Too

Maybe humanity is there too.
We’ve broken away from the old system, but the new one doesn’t work yet.
Music is everywhere, and yet nowhere.
Too much stuff. No value.

Maybe as a society we’re also just past the liminal zone.
There’s no going back. But where we go from here is still uncertain.

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Completion as a New Beginning

Fripp says the end can take three forms:

• a finish – something is lost,

• a conclusion – nothing changes,

• or a completion – something transforms.

That’s when a new beginning emerges.
Not as someone still searching. But as someone who carries experience.
Like the one who holds a lantern — not because they know everything, but because they’ve walked the path and now light the way for others.

I’m not holding it yet.
But I know which way I’m not going.
And for now, that’s enough.

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David