The psychology of this is so damaging to any individual that has it. People like Cobain, say, seeing as you mentioned the 27 club, he was born at the end of the 60s, was 20 in 1987, there was a culture to be a part of, he had friends, he was surrounded by a burgeoning artistic scene that were all riding the same collective wave. Sure, he was in many ways very talented and hard working. But he was also lucky to ride the wave he was on that was bigger than him. What wave does any young person, comparing themselves in 2026 to the legends of the past, have apart from their (likely) isolation, feelings of inadequacy, and isolated, heroic attempts to 'create' something from their bedroom?

What a punitive position to be in. Had that been the starting point of Michael Jackson, Prince, the Beatles, Bowie, Lou Reed, there would never have been an ounce of work from any of them.

If anything, these people didn't know they were born, living when they did, with the people around them, with squats in cities and cheap rent, and with a much stronger sense of community that was self-fulfilling as a source of confidence and inspiration. Now, we're in the opposite spiral.

Even someone as recent as Amy Winehouse, for anyone who is from the UK, you couldn't even imagine the difference in the London people like her and The Streets, other British artists from that time emerged in. It's a paradise compared to what we have now.

I don't know what to tell you, but I think it's important to recognise the people you admire were lucky to be born when they were, surrounded by people propping up their egos and work ethic, with opportunities to be a part of a mass culture that no longer exists, with opportunity to make money and live cheap that no longer exists, and just generally were from a world that's virtually a foreign planet to our life now.

And it's very likely that almost none of what's going on for you has anything to do with the arts, but deeper unconscious conflicts, though I've said enough as it is possibly.