I had to laugh at OP's idea that stopping making music is a conscious thing. It's not a means to an end, it runs parallel to your life at all times. It's not a stepping stone between
this part of your life and
that part. Sometimes it fades and becomes a tiny line where the only songwriting you do is humming to yourself when you go to work and this might last for months, sometimes it comes into sharp focus and you spend every minute of your free time focused on huge and complex productions and this might last a day or a year or more.
The fact is, if you feel you can definitively stop making music because of something like age or lack of success, I would suggest that no matter how melodic or agreeable the thing you make is, it certainly isn't music in the sense that
I perceive it.
