I thought we’d talk about wizard schools and worldbuilding and maybe a little about Neil Gaiman sprinkled in for flavor. Instead, I walked away thinking about the one belief that I’ve been a proponent of over the last couple of years, but which Ryan challenged for me today.
It starts with a phrase we’ve all heard since we were kids.
Follow your dreams.
I used to love that line. It felt warm. Encouraging. Like a permission slip to go be the wild creative I always wanted to be. But when I asked Ryan about the worst advice he ever received, he didn’t even blink. He said it immediately. And then he explained why.
The Dream That Doesn’t Match Reality
Ryan grew up wanting to be everything. A zookeeper. A paleontologist. An astronaut. A Lego designer. Basically the entire cast of a children’s museum. And none of those dreams turned into the life he has now. He didn’t grow up thinking he’d be a teacher or a novelist. Those were accidental doors he walked through because life nudged him that way.
The dream you imagine is never the reality you get. Not even close. And if you cling to that one dream too tightly, you end up trying to force the world to match something that only ever existed in your head.
I’ve done that. I think most creatives have. You build this perfect picture of what your creative life is supposed to look like, and then you punish yourself when the real thing doesn’t line up. It’s wild how quickly a dream can turn into a cage.
When the Dream Starts Taking Instead of Giving
Ryan tried the full time artist life. Blacksmithing. Sculpting. Armor work. Costuming. The whole creative hustle. And he could do the work. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was everything around the work. The business. The sales. The pressure to say yes to every job because rent depended on it.
He told me it drained the joy right out of him. I could hear it in his voice. That quiet exhaustion creatives get when the thing they love starts feeling like a weight instead of a spark.
I’ve been there too. When your art becomes the thing that keeps the lights on, it stops being art. It becomes survival. And survival has a way of squeezing the magic out of everything.
The Year That Would Have Broken Anyone
And then he told me about the year everything fell apart. His father died. His grandmother died. His relationship ended. He was broke, working three jobs, and it was only March. I just sat there listening, feeling the heaviness of it.
He said it shut down his creativity for years. Not weeks. Not months. Years. And I get that. When life hits that hard, the creative part of you goes quiet.
The Pivot That Saved Him
What surprised me was what brought him back. It wasn’t doubling down on the dream. It wasn’t pushing harder. It wasn’t some dramatic comeback montage. It was teaching. A job he didn’t plan on. A job that gave him something he’d never had before. Stability.
A routine that didn’t drain him. A life that didn’t depend on his art to survive. And slowly, almost quietly, the creativity returned. Not because he forced it, but because he finally had room to breathe.
That part hit me. Stability fuels creativity. Chaos kills it. We don’t like admitting that because it feels unromantic. But it’s true.
Letting the Dream Evolve
Ryan said something near the end that I’ve been thinking about ever since. Have multiple dreams. Be willing to pivot. It sounds simple, but it’s not. It requires letting go of the version of yourself you thought you were supposed to become. It requires trusting that the creative life is bigger than any single dream.
And maybe that’s the real point. The dream isn’t the destination. It’s the fuel. It gets you moving, but it isn’t meant to trap you in one direction forever.
I think about that a lot. How many times I’ve held onto a dream long after it stopped fitting. How many times I’ve tried to force myself into a version of my creative life that didn’t match who I was becoming.
I don’t have a tidy conclusion here. I’m still sitting with it. Maybe the creative life isn’t about chasing one dream. Maybe it’s about building a life that can hold many. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s more than enough.
Learn More about Ryan AKA R.A. Consell at: https://stealingfromwizards.com/
For the full interview and more inspiration, check out the Light-Minded Arts podcast! https://brentxp.podbean.com/e/lightminded-arts-28-when-the-dream-stops-working/?token=2a842fa3881b762957fe704af9f36f34
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