Refrain.

[astrophel_]

(My parents hear this at semi-regular intervals... every few months, perhaps.)
After I complete this Masters degree thingy--(just got back to Karlsruhe from CT yesterday; it smells like summer outside. Germany and Italy share a certain wonderful summer-scent, I think)--I shall change careers, get a postbacc and go to medical school.
Reasons (today's

Comments

Re: this is said with loving bluntness

[astrophel_]

Hurrah for scorn! Truth be told, the whole starving-artist idea is rather unrelated, and not a particular worry. (It worries my parents, though.) I think I could lead a fine life as a singer, I'm just very confused as to why I constantly want to do something else. The problem being that I want to do something else... _too_. Not in place of. Neither medicine nor singing tend to make much of a part-time career. I want to do everything, and I want to do it all now.
But specifically as regards medicine: it's always been the other interest, going back at least as far as music. I have fond memories of performing mock-surgeries at my father's office when I was 10, and there is a model of a foot with a missing third toe as proof of my skill at amputation. Granted, I was captivated by the ceremony of it: I would clean the entire room and set it up just as I had seen his staff prepare it for in-office procedures; I would fold back the wrist of a glove to pretend I was donning sterile gloves... and I would pester the staff with all manner of questions to make sure I got it all as close to 'right' as I was permitted. That's hardly a lifelong passion for medicine right there (more a lifelong passion for playing make-believe?) but it's certainly part of a long-held fantasy.
This is largely inspired by feeling unproductive for the last eight months. But there's something more that bothers me about a musical career, and I haven't yet managed to place my finger on it.
This may be a silly question, but why are you a musician? Because of the music, because of the musicmaking, or because of something else? Thanks for making me think harder about what I wrote... and I'm going to answer your other question too, I just have to think about that a little more.