A response to a comment, which turned into a rambling monologue that I decided belongs here.
Dominique wrote:You cannot switch this late in the game of life just because you want to and you feel you missed the boat....
You have to want to go to med school so badly that your life would be meaningless without it, because other people are there for that reason and you're starting waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy behind them with your background in the arts.
Your reality check is free of charge.
My (most recent notion of one of my) problem(s) is that I desperately want to do everything. I feel completely unfulfilled by doing just seven things at any given time. I recognize that that's a horrible rationale for such a switch, and I'm certainly not planning on doing any switching today or tomorrow. Especially seeing as this is day 4 of my master's degree, and it's off to a rather good start, in my estimation. I've been searching (and searching, and searching) for an answer to the question Aparecida thoughtfully posed about this boredom with any one pursuit. I've gone so far as to write three different ends to this paragraph giving partial answers I've come up with, and I've deleted each of them because they don't actually answer the question. They're all frustrations with music performance as a career, but my restlessness goes deeper than this one career path I've started to follow. There's a sort of mania to my interests, with the wonderful aspect of that being that they're generally cumulative; I'm not discarding old pursuits in favor of new ones, just adding and shuffling (ephemeral) priorities. Which is another good reason not to embark on a second wildly expensive, intensive and unforgiving career path. And yet! The lure of a new or renewed fascination can be akin to that of the addict's next fix. I want to study, then practice, medicine on Mondays and Tuesdays; study, then practice, constitutional law on Wednesdays, be a museum curator Thursdays, and spend the weekends touring the country performing music. And then change that whole line-up when my interests change. (When I was 10, I had my life completely figured out... and even then it was divided four-ways: I was going to get my associate's degree from the Culinary Institute, then an undergrad in theoretical physics {i was 10. college seemed like a pretty high level to me, back then}, and then {in either order} Yale Law and Harvard Med. This still sounds vaguely appealing, if I were to start over. I'd love to spend a few years working on the line in a great chef's kitchen, too. Learn some knife skills. c.f. a comment about becoming a serial killer--which I can cross of my list. FBI psych-profiler, still on the list.)
But, lest you think that all of this is my fickle passions, I'll attend to your last suggestion--med school (or anything) only if my life is meaningless without it. The Meaningful Life is at the root of this restlessness. I haven't figured out what I have to Do in life to feel satisfied or accomplished. Music is a part of it, but for some reason I can't accept that it's enough, or even the better part of it. I want to do something revolutionary. And not revolutionary in my own little corner of some parochial world. How does medicine, or law, or cooking or interior designer or carnival barker fit into that? Not sure, but it's another stone to turn over.
(1) Anyone who reads this will, I assume, think immediately "STEER CLEAR OF MED SCHOOL!" I'm not really this fickle. I've been on this music-as-career path fairly consistently for at least 10 years now. I just like to ramble and fantasize and monologuize.
(2) I do ramble quite a bit, don't I.
I think I need a magnum opus, a life's work that is wildly interdisciplinary and attracts the attention and contribution and participation of similarly not-quite-sane people (eventually, the leaders) in their respective fields, one that will completely revolutionize some "everything" and that I can start, definitively, tomorrow. Or the day after. That sounds meaningful and exciting and satisfying.
c.f. Isaac Asimov, Foundation.
You have to want to go to med school so badly that your life would be meaningless without it, because other people are there for that reason and you're starting waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy behind them with your background in the arts.
Your reality check is free of charge.
My (most recent notion of one of my) problem(s) is that I desperately want to do everything. I feel completely unfulfilled by doing just seven things at any given time. I recognize that that's a horrible rationale for such a switch, and I'm certainly not planning on doing any switching today or tomorrow. Especially seeing as this is day 4 of my master's degree, and it's off to a rather good start, in my estimation. I've been searching (and searching, and searching) for an answer to the question Aparecida thoughtfully posed about this boredom with any one pursuit. I've gone so far as to write three different ends to this paragraph giving partial answers I've come up with, and I've deleted each of them because they don't actually answer the question. They're all frustrations with music performance as a career, but my restlessness goes deeper than this one career path I've started to follow. There's a sort of mania to my interests, with the wonderful aspect of that being that they're generally cumulative; I'm not discarding old pursuits in favor of new ones, just adding and shuffling (ephemeral) priorities. Which is another good reason not to embark on a second wildly expensive, intensive and unforgiving career path. And yet! The lure of a new or renewed fascination can be akin to that of the addict's next fix. I want to study, then practice, medicine on Mondays and Tuesdays; study, then practice, constitutional law on Wednesdays, be a museum curator Thursdays, and spend the weekends touring the country performing music. And then change that whole line-up when my interests change. (When I was 10, I had my life completely figured out... and even then it was divided four-ways: I was going to get my associate's degree from the Culinary Institute, then an undergrad in theoretical physics {i was 10. college seemed like a pretty high level to me, back then}, and then {in either order} Yale Law and Harvard Med. This still sounds vaguely appealing, if I were to start over. I'd love to spend a few years working on the line in a great chef's kitchen, too. Learn some knife skills. c.f. a comment about becoming a serial killer--which I can cross of my list. FBI psych-profiler, still on the list.)
But, lest you think that all of this is my fickle passions, I'll attend to your last suggestion--med school (or anything) only if my life is meaningless without it. The Meaningful Life is at the root of this restlessness. I haven't figured out what I have to Do in life to feel satisfied or accomplished. Music is a part of it, but for some reason I can't accept that it's enough, or even the better part of it. I want to do something revolutionary. And not revolutionary in my own little corner of some parochial world. How does medicine, or law, or cooking or interior designer or carnival barker fit into that? Not sure, but it's another stone to turn over.
(1) Anyone who reads this will, I assume, think immediately "STEER CLEAR OF MED SCHOOL!" I'm not really this fickle. I've been on this music-as-career path fairly consistently for at least 10 years now. I just like to ramble and fantasize and monologuize.
(2) I do ramble quite a bit, don't I.
I think I need a magnum opus, a life's work that is wildly interdisciplinary and attracts the attention and contribution and participation of similarly not-quite-sane people (eventually, the leaders) in their respective fields, one that will completely revolutionize some "everything" and that I can start, definitively, tomorrow. Or the day after. That sounds meaningful and exciting and satisfying.
c.f. Isaac Asimov, Foundation.