On Slowness, Authenticity, and the Hidden Cost of Making Art in a Capitalist Age
I never thought I’d feel excluded from the very thing that once gave me a sense of freedom. But lately, I’ve come to realise that I am being priced out of my own creativity. Not because I lack the passion, or the ideas, or the skill — but because I can’t afford to keep up. In a world where speed, output, and polished presentation have become the currency of success, the slow, deliberate path of authentic creation begins to feel like a liability. It’s not that I envy others for having more — it’s that I’m haunted by the quiet truth that if I could afford their shortcuts, I’d take them too. And maybe then, I’d finally be heard.
The Outsourced Artist
In today’s creative landscape, outsourcing isn’t just accepted — it’s expected. Bands hire mixing engineers, mastering engineers, session musicians, graphic designers, videographers, social media managers, PR firms, playlist pluggers, and even ghostwriters. What once might have been a collaborative luxury is now a prerequisite for visibility.
The result? A strange duality: the artist becomes both the brand and the product, while the actual act of creation is often fragmented, delegated, monetized.
What happens to those of us who can’t afford to participate in this system — not just financially, but philosophically?
If your process is slower, more solitary, more sacred — you risk becoming invisible. It begins to feel as though the art you bleed over is less “real” because it lacks the polish, the reach, the momentum.
But polish is not proof of depth. And speed is not proof of soul.
The Pace of the Mind
For some of us, slow work isn’t a choice — it’s how we’re wired. As a neurodivergent creator, my process often unfolds at the rhythm of deep focus, scattered epiphanies, or energy that arrives in brief, unscheduled waves. I don’t have the bandwidth to be “on” all the time, nor the capacity to split myself between creating, promoting, polishing, and packaging — all while maintaining a public-facing presence.
There are days when just starting takes all my energy. Not because I don’t care — but because I care too much. The ideas are there, the vision is vivid, but the executive function required to carry it through feels like swimming in glue.
In a society that equates slowness with laziness, this reality becomes invisible. But slow art isn’t lazy — it’s often more conscious, more personal, more layered.
The problem isn’t my pace. It’s that the creative world is rigged for speed.
The Misinterpretation of Slowness
In the eyes of an algorithm-driven world, slowness is indistinguishable from absence. If you’re not releasing something, promoting something, performing something, or networking somewhere, you might as well not exist.
The labor you’re doing behind the scenes — the quiet crafting, the emotional processing, the struggle to bring a foggy idea into form — becomes invisible.
There is no metric for sitting with your feelings.
No content calendar for trial-and-error.
No viral moment for doing something the hard way just because it felt true.
The unspoken message is: If you were really good, it wouldn’t take this long.
But what if the time it takes is part of the art?
Between Autonomy and Assistance
I sometimes wonder what I might create if I had the means to outsource the tedious parts of production — the repetitive tasks, the non-creative polish, the technical finishing touches. And yes, I would do so in a heartbeat if I could. There is no virtue in burnout.
But there are aspects of my work that feel sacred.
Decisions that need to be made by hand, not handed over.
Not everything can be automated without losing something vital.
Even in areas where tools like AI are beginning to offer creative support, I tread cautiously. I welcome augmentation — a scaffolding to help me express what’s already inside me — but I resist the pull toward a fully packaged aesthetic I didn’t choose.
To maintain agency over your art in a world that rewards trend-following over truth… is to walk a narrower path.
Why I Still Create
And yet, I keep creating.
Not because the system rewards me, but because something in me refuses to stop.
I create for the moments when the noise falls away and something raw and beautiful emerges from the mess.
I create because it connects me to myself, and sometimes, to others who are quietly walking similar paths.
I don’t know if my work will ever be widely seen, heard, or recognised. But I know it is mine. Every rough edge. Every choice made without compromise. Every imperfect but honest thing I shaped with my own hands.
That has to count for something.
So this is for the others like me — the slow ones, the careful ones, the fiercely authentic ones.
You’re not invisible to me.
I see you in the cracks, in the edges, in the long silences before the next release.
And I believe what you make, when it finally arrives, will be worth the wait.