Carrying a Lantern in Daylight
Nietzsche tells a story about a madman who appears at noon, lantern in hand.
The crowd laughs. Of course they do. The sun is overhead. Everything is already visible.
But that’s not what he’s looking for.
Here’s what musicians forget: visibility isn’t the same as being seen.
The marketplace is flooded with light. Songs everywhere. Reels on repeat. Playlists that never end. Algorithms that promise exposure to anyone willing to play the game.
Everyone is visible. Everyone is shouting. Everyone looks exactly the same.
The sun is so bright it blinds.
Standing out doesn’t mean being louder. It doesn’t mean more content, more posts, more of the same thing everyone else is doing but with better production value.
It means carrying something that makes no sense at first.
Your lantern is the thing that feels unnecessary. The release strategy that breaks the rules. The visual that doesn’t match. The story that makes people stop and tilt their heads.
At first, they’ll dismiss it. They’ll scroll. They’ll laugh, just like the crowd in the marketplace.
But then something happens.
They realize the lantern wasn’t meant to compete with the sun. It was meant to show them something the daylight couldn’t reveal. Something they didn’t know they were looking for.
The job isn’t to fit into the light everyone else is standing in.
The job is to bring light where it isn’t expected.
In a world where everyone is trying to be seen, the only way to be noticed is to do something that seems pointless.
Until it isn’t.
Carry your lantern
.