EXT. HEAVEN – DAY
A desk. Two chairs. An Angel sits behind the desk. There is paperwork.
ANGEL: Career choice?
ME: Musician. Singer. Soprano.
He looks up. (I'm not sure angels are binary, but let's assume.)
ANGEL: Are you sure?
ME: Yes.
ANGEL: You can still change it.
ME: I don't want to change it.
He ticks a box.
ANGEL: Pick your superpower.
(I didn't see that coming…)
ME: Talent!
ANGEL: I would advise against it.
ME: Excuse me?
ANGEL: It's included.
ME: Oh.
ANGEL: Well, within reason.
(Angels and sarcasm? I didn't picture that…)ME: Any advice?
ANGEL: Didn't you read the leaflet?
He reaches for a piece of paper.
ANGEL: Let's see. How are you with rejection?
ME: I heard it comes with the job.
ANGEL: Being ignored?
ME: Who's OK with that?
He writes something down.
ANGEL: Would you rather have a hundred people hate something you’ve made, or nobody notice you’d made it?
ME: Why would a hundred people hate it?
ANGEL: That's not really the point.
ME: It's quite a significant piece of information…
ANGEL: Nobody notices, then.
ME: I don't want that either.
ANGEL: There isn't a third option.
(I should have read that leaflet…)
A few weeks ago, I came across a post sharing a statement from The Joe Budden Podcast (I know, I never heard of it either). The statement claimed that:
“Most musicians don’t fail because they’re bad at what they do.
They fail because their nervous systems can’t survive the industry.“
It continued:
“The biggest myth in music is that success depends on exposure. No.
It depends on whether your body can handle being unseen longer than you expected.
Most artists quit not because they're untalented, but because their brain interprets silence as danger.
The industry doesn't break voices. It breaks nervous systems.”
The source of the statement was an anonymous record producer in LA. Nobody seems to know who this person actually is. (Which is rather appropriate for an essay about feeling invisible.)
I couldn’t verify the producer, but one question stayed with me:
What does feeling invisible actually do to our nervous system?
I've lost count of the number of times I've made something I thought was really good (yes, it does happen), and almost nobody seemed to notice.
I came to realise that being ignored hurts more than being rejected.
Don’t get me wrong: NOs are horrible. I’ve had plenty: auditions, competitions, funding applications, proposals, emails. You learn to survive them. Sometimes elegantly. Sometimes with tears. Most of the time, followed by wine.
Silence does something different.
So naturally, I wanted to know whether I was being ridiculously sensitive. Apparently not. Humans aren’t particularly good at being ignored.
Psychologists have a great word for it: ostracism. And they have studied what it does to us. Even brief experiences of it can mess with our sense of belonging, self-esteem and control. One of the things researchers say is that it can threaten our sense of “meaningful existence.”
Meaningful existence.
That’s quite a lot to lose because somebody didn’t reply to your email…
And then I started wondering whether being ignored is indeed psychologically harder than being criticised. After all, criticism gives you something. You can disagree with it. You can be angry about it. (And being angry can actually give you A LOT of energy - but this is a subject for another essay).
Silence gives you rather less to work with.
BACK TO HEAVEN
ANGEL: How long are you prepared to be invisible?
ME: I’m going to be a performer, so…
ANGEL: Not what I asked.ME: A year?
Silence.
ME: Two?
ANGEL: What if it takes longer than you expected?
(I don’t like where this is going.)
ANGEL: What if people younger than you start getting the things you thought you’d have by then?
ME: How much younger?
ANGEL: Does it matter?
ME: Yes.
He writes something else down.
We don’t talk enough about silence.
We talk about talent, discipline, luck, contacts, technique, agents, marketing, social media and, don't forget, the importance of networking.
The superpower we don't talk about enough is simply being able to keep going when nobody seems to notice. Especially when everyone else appears to be getting somewhere faster than we are.
And now, of course, we have invented machines to help us keep track.
There was a time when you could perform something and go home without knowing precisely how many people liked it. Remember that?
I found a 2025 study where musicians talked about trying to stay visible online, comparing themselves with everyone else and attempting to make sense of the algorithms… All that while, you know, trying to make music.
One musician described it as working in a “content factory”. (Anyone else?)
In truth, visibility is supposed to be what we’re all trying to achieve: Look at me. Book me. Listen to me. Come to the concert. Read this. Watch this. Play this. Share this.
And then one day, perhaps, everybody does. (Yay!)
BACK TO HEAVEN
ANGEL: What happens if millions of people suddenly see you?
ME: Excellent.
ANGEL: And then they stop?
ME: Why would they stop?
ANGEL: You might never know why.
The statement from the anonymous LA producer also included the story of a singer who went viral overnight and disappeared six months later because, it claimed, the “dopamine crash” after fame felt like grief.
I couldn’t verify the singer or the dopamine explanation, so I went looking for something I could verify. I ended up with Olympic athletes.
There is research into what is known as the post-Olympic blues: that strange (yet so well known) emotional territory some elite athletes experience.
You work towards something for years. You imagine it. Prepare for it. Eventually you’re standing there, and everybody is looking at you. Then you go home.
Nobody really teaches you what to do when the applause stops. Perhaps because nobody can.
I believe the mistake is imagining visibility as somewhere we arrive. We work very hard while nobody knows who we are, eventually enough people notice, and then - congratulations - we are visible.
But it turns out I can be very visible on Tuesday and still have to send emails introducing myself from scratch on Wednesday.
(Sigh.)
Yes, I know, there is no arrival. I even posted about that a few weeks ago! (No, I will not reveal how many likes I got...)
BACK TO HEAVEN
The Angel looks impatient.
ANGEL: Have you decided?
ME: About what?
ANGEL: Your superpower.
(I’d forgotten.)
ME: Can I have the ability to continue making things when nobody appears to care, always believe in myself no matter how old I get, be assertive without people thinking I’m a bitch - and if they do, think, well, I’m OK with it - and, most of all, still have fun and enjoy singing and making music more than anything because I know it will bring joy to people?
(Phew. I forgot to breathe.)
ANGEL: That’s way more than one superpower.
ME: Is there a premium package?
ANGEL: There is.
ME: Can I have it?
ANGEL: No.
ME: Why not?Silence.
ANGEL: Anything else?
ME: I’d like not to spend my whole life feeling as though I’m running out of time.
ANGEL: You are.
ME: Excuse me?
ANGEL: Running out of time. All humans are.
ME: That’s not particularly helpful.
ANGEL: I was assigned to Careers, not Help.
Silence.
ANGEL: Still want to be a musician?(I should probably think about this more carefully.)
ME: Yes.
ANGEL: Right.
He stamps the form.
I’m almost at the door when I remember something.
ME: Wait - Wonder Woman! Can I just do that instead? She never gets old and has loads of superpower.
ANGEL: You do realise she keeps saving the world without being recognised or getting paid, right?
ME: Musician it is.
ANGEL: You really didn't read the leaflet, did you?
Your superpower is inspiration - to create many great things and also inspire others ☺️