[fiprofessor]

Nice essay, but some of the contemporary examples in this paragraph about the independenlty wealthy are not really that compelling:

I’m not saying wealthy people can’t make incredible artists. Without Marcel Duchamp’s monthly allowance from his father throughout his adult life, we would never have Dada. Giacinto Scelsi was literally the heir and Duke of La Spezia castle estate. Something more contemporary? Grimes’ mother was a Crown Prosecutor, the Canadian equivalent of a District Attorney, in Vancouver. Frankie Cosmos’ dad is the guy from Wild Wild West, no, not Will Smith, the other guy. Julian Casablancas’ father ran New York’s top super modeling agency while young Julian hung out at the kid’s table with Ivanka Trump at Christmas time. The list goes on.

The argument is supposed to be that these kids didn't have to worry about paying the rent, so they were able to devote more time to their craft. But I don't think some of the contemporary examples listed were necessarily like that.

Take Grimes -- a Crown Prosecutor is a public servant, so you can look up their average pay ranges: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/careers-myhr/all-employee... . That's definitely a solid middle class life, but not exactly generational wealth. Now, compared to a poor kid who has to take on jobs in high school to support their family, I'm sure she had more time and less stress in her teenage years which let her practice more, but there are lots and lots of middle class children who have that level of free time which they devote to all sorts of extracurriculars.

Moreover, Grimes, Casablancas, and Cosmos blew up when they were in their very early 20s: Cosmos released her debut studio album at 20, Grimes at 22, Casablancas at 23. So, despite any family wealth they may have had, it's not like they spent years and years of their adult lives living off their parents' support, or at least not any more so than hundreds of thousands of college students do every year. Of course, they had it easier than kids who cannot even afford to go to college, or who are working 20 hours a week to pay their way, but I'm not sure it's at all comparable to Duchamp or Scelsi.

Maybe there's an argument that social connections helped them to get their record deals, but the argument presented doesn't seem to apply.

[bena]

Grimes's dad was a former banker working on "the business side of biotech". That's two very solid incomes. And then she was with Devon Welsh, a singer/songwriter whose father was an actor. And most famously has been the partner of Elon Musk. She's had probably a larger share of carefree living than most.

However, success is never just one thing. Because there are plenty of people with the same or greater level of support that Grimes had that never make it.

But the point is that there are plenty of people as talented or more than Grimes who achieve no success at all.

Success is more often than not the result of avoiding catastrophic issues than it is from anything you actively choose. And the more chances you have to try, the more chances you have of doing something that avoids catastrophe.

Hard work, support, talent, luck, determination, these will all help you, but none of them will guarantee you success. Not singularly or in combination.

[fiprofessor]

> And then she was with Devon Welsh, a singer/songwriter whose father was an actor. And most famously has been the partner of Elon Musk. She's had probably a larger share of carefree living than most.

No doubt she's had a good life, but Devon Welsh was himself basically a nobody when they dated, and she was already extremely successful as an artist by the time she became Elon's partner.

It's just strange of the author to pick someone who had already released two studio albums during her time as a student at McGill as a supposed example of someone being able to succeed because their parents paid their bills for an interminable amount of time. This is after a paragraph where the author said:

> Who paid for all this time? How does someone outside of a conservatory program have the time to compose, record, and perform new original material every month, let alone to even practice their instrument an hour a day? The answer almost always comes down to the ability to not have to worry about paid work while pursuing your craft. As in, most likely, someone in your family pays your rent.

The answer, in the case of Grimes, is she was a college student, probably neglecting her studies a bit, being supported the way many college students or even people in conservatories are.

[bena]

But Devon Welsh's dad was a successful Canadian actor with a net worth of several million. Being the girlfriend of a millionaire's son is not a bad position to be in.

Failure wouldn't even be a blip on her radar at any point in her life. I really can't see at any point in her life where something had to work in order for her to survive.

Which is the case for a lot of people. They have to do things that are lower risk because losing that bet means you're simply fucked. You can take the 1 in 1 million chance you become a successful recording artist or you can take the 100 in 1 chance you get a job to sustain yourself. If your survival is the thing that is at stake, the smart play is to take the job. If you'd survive no matter what, you not only take the 1 in a million shot, you take it as often as you can.

[Balgair]

I think that the author belies his true poverty in the piece then. If a middle class lifestyle is seen to the author as 'rich', then he must be really really struggling. Knowing a few friends that are in the situation that the author is in, I'd agree.

Be like Einstein, make the post office work for you. Maybe that's a better way of thinking about it?