Cruddy Holidays....
I have a like/hate relationship with this time of year. On one hand there's all the gigs, sure it's alot of work, but at least it means I'll have enough money to appease my creditors for a couple of months and maybe even chip away at the debt I aquired in my college years.
However, it's also that time of year where you're supposed to reflect on things.....of course it's just a social meme, like everything else, but I'm no more immune to social memes than I am the ebola virus.....
Of course my birthday is also around this time of year, so it's like a double reflective time....WHEEE!!!!!
I hate this time of year because it always brings back the old ghosts. Stuff I don't like to think about, and people I'd rather not talk to....just a huge laundry list of things and people that I can ignore the rest of the year are suddenly paraded before my mind and person like some kind of evil nativity scene.
The worst part however is the inner reflections that come as a result of all of this are not helped by the fact that my own inner dialogue is so often disingenuous. My mother raised me in a wonderfully fantastical world, that even after everything I've gone through I still subconciously believe in. When I try to reflect on how I might help myself or improve my life I have to sift through a whole load of unrealistic idealistic crap before I can actually get anywhere useful. Long story short, my inner voice is a passive-agressive, wildly unrealistic, narcissistic, idealist bitch and I can't really stand him/her/it. If that last bit sounded insane, well, it makes sense to me, which is probably a bad sign.
But I think I've gotten to the bottom of one of my biggest current problems, not that I know what to do about it. Basically I lack the courage of my convictions.
Music is pretty much the most important thing in my life, in a kind of unhealthy co-dependant kind of way. It's like that chick that you first meet in college, and you're both pretty fucked up but you find that little spark of chemistry so you shack up togehter and before you know it you wake up and have 2.5 kids and a dead end job, and the business end of a .45 caliber handgun in your mouth. Only of course there's no sex or kids, just the dead end job and the handgun......
What I'm saying is in alot of ways I shouldn't have been a professional musician. Thats a big statement, and the why is pretty complicated, but here it goes.
Music is crutch for me. It was a good way to escape from my family when I was younger, I could say all the things I wanted to say in music and not get in trouble for it!! When I got into college and my Bi-Polar started to really assert itself the only thing that really made any sense on any kind of level was music. No matter what mood or frame of mind I was in I could always find some kind of meaning in it. From the above statement one might take away the idea that music has pretty much been the great refuge of my life, and that would be true.
However, as a way of life it's been hell. Rather than go into a million minutiae I'll just skip to the big problem, I can't think objectively about this (or at least not in any meaningful long term way). One might think that that isn't a problem, music isnt' necesarily about objectivity...and that would be true, the actual act of creating music isn't. But the skill and the craft of it is, and that's where the problem comes in.
As a violinist, I was rather mediocre as a child. All thumbs as one teacher put it, so it was only through sheer determination that I got anywhere at all. Still, determination can only get you so far and I started running into huge walls in my technique, fortunately I found a teacher that could help me overcome many of those walls and as a result my college years saw a huge increase in the quality of my playing.
In my post college years things have been not as good, this is where the problem of Objectivity comes in. As a student, you simply absorb, lack of clear objectivity on the part of the student can be overcome in a number of ways if a teacher is good enough (and fortunately mine was), and on many levels I just absorbed much of my knowledge and skill from watching and listening to my peers.
Now however, I've hit a wall again....and this one is much more dire. Just listening and watching, or being told what to do no longer suffices. At some point, you reach a level where if you are not able to look at what you are doing and figure it out for yourself you won't progress, basically I've learned all that I can from other people and now I have to learn from myself. This takes a certain objectivity in looking at what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and a huge amount of sensitivity to the feedback that my body and ears are giving me. Unfortunately emotionally I have a HUGE blowback in this area.
Music has always been my refuge, it is to me what, religion, chocolate shakes, and crappy movies are to others. So when I go in to try and objectively pull apart a problem to fix it, well....let's just say it doesn't go well. That would be fine if this was just a hobby, I could just pick a level of music I'm comfortable playing and fiddle away till they lay me in a pine box. Unfortunately it's VERY bad as a professional. A couple of weeks ago I posted on some of the things I think I need to do to further my career....well hold the presses, cause if I can't get past this I might as well throw in the towel.
This might not be such a big deal if it were a new revelation, but on some levels I've known this was a problem for a few years now. My inner voice being what it is though, I allowed myself any number of other excuses or possibilities and dodged the problem in any number of artful ways. I've been trying one way or another to deal with it and had no success whatsoever. Based on my past experience in the area of "working out my problems" I realize that awareness of a problem in no way equates to any chance of actually overcoming said problem.
So basically I've come to realize the greatest challenge of my entire professional (and personal) life, and I don't know that I can fix it. Part of me feels that doing so will fundamentally change part of my relationship with music, which, being one of the few things keeping my psyche together is a daunting prospect.
I'll be honest, I have no idea how I'm going to tackle this. I say I'm a professional violinist, I say I'm an artist, but I'm afraid or incapable of doing what I need to do to be that person. Because what, I'll hurt my own feelings?
/rant on
For fucks sake man, have the courage of your convictions and just do it! I didnt' spend the last 28 years of your life pursuing this for you to bitch out now!! God you're so fucking Emo!!!
/rant off
At least that's how I'd normaly snap myself out of these things, only it isn't working this time and I'm not sure what will. I'm tired, I think I'll take a nap.
However, it's also that time of year where you're supposed to reflect on things.....of course it's just a social meme, like everything else, but I'm no more immune to social memes than I am the ebola virus.....
Of course my birthday is also around this time of year, so it's like a double reflective time....WHEEE!!!!!
I hate this time of year because it always brings back the old ghosts. Stuff I don't like to think about, and people I'd rather not talk to....just a huge laundry list of things and people that I can ignore the rest of the year are suddenly paraded before my mind and person like some kind of evil nativity scene.
The worst part however is the inner reflections that come as a result of all of this are not helped by the fact that my own inner dialogue is so often disingenuous. My mother raised me in a wonderfully fantastical world, that even after everything I've gone through I still subconciously believe in. When I try to reflect on how I might help myself or improve my life I have to sift through a whole load of unrealistic idealistic crap before I can actually get anywhere useful. Long story short, my inner voice is a passive-agressive, wildly unrealistic, narcissistic, idealist bitch and I can't really stand him/her/it. If that last bit sounded insane, well, it makes sense to me, which is probably a bad sign.
But I think I've gotten to the bottom of one of my biggest current problems, not that I know what to do about it. Basically I lack the courage of my convictions.
Music is pretty much the most important thing in my life, in a kind of unhealthy co-dependant kind of way. It's like that chick that you first meet in college, and you're both pretty fucked up but you find that little spark of chemistry so you shack up togehter and before you know it you wake up and have 2.5 kids and a dead end job, and the business end of a .45 caliber handgun in your mouth. Only of course there's no sex or kids, just the dead end job and the handgun......
What I'm saying is in alot of ways I shouldn't have been a professional musician. Thats a big statement, and the why is pretty complicated, but here it goes.
Music is crutch for me. It was a good way to escape from my family when I was younger, I could say all the things I wanted to say in music and not get in trouble for it!! When I got into college and my Bi-Polar started to really assert itself the only thing that really made any sense on any kind of level was music. No matter what mood or frame of mind I was in I could always find some kind of meaning in it. From the above statement one might take away the idea that music has pretty much been the great refuge of my life, and that would be true.
However, as a way of life it's been hell. Rather than go into a million minutiae I'll just skip to the big problem, I can't think objectively about this (or at least not in any meaningful long term way). One might think that that isn't a problem, music isnt' necesarily about objectivity...and that would be true, the actual act of creating music isn't. But the skill and the craft of it is, and that's where the problem comes in.
As a violinist, I was rather mediocre as a child. All thumbs as one teacher put it, so it was only through sheer determination that I got anywhere at all. Still, determination can only get you so far and I started running into huge walls in my technique, fortunately I found a teacher that could help me overcome many of those walls and as a result my college years saw a huge increase in the quality of my playing.
In my post college years things have been not as good, this is where the problem of Objectivity comes in. As a student, you simply absorb, lack of clear objectivity on the part of the student can be overcome in a number of ways if a teacher is good enough (and fortunately mine was), and on many levels I just absorbed much of my knowledge and skill from watching and listening to my peers.
Now however, I've hit a wall again....and this one is much more dire. Just listening and watching, or being told what to do no longer suffices. At some point, you reach a level where if you are not able to look at what you are doing and figure it out for yourself you won't progress, basically I've learned all that I can from other people and now I have to learn from myself. This takes a certain objectivity in looking at what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and a huge amount of sensitivity to the feedback that my body and ears are giving me. Unfortunately emotionally I have a HUGE blowback in this area.
Music has always been my refuge, it is to me what, religion, chocolate shakes, and crappy movies are to others. So when I go in to try and objectively pull apart a problem to fix it, well....let's just say it doesn't go well. That would be fine if this was just a hobby, I could just pick a level of music I'm comfortable playing and fiddle away till they lay me in a pine box. Unfortunately it's VERY bad as a professional. A couple of weeks ago I posted on some of the things I think I need to do to further my career....well hold the presses, cause if I can't get past this I might as well throw in the towel.
This might not be such a big deal if it were a new revelation, but on some levels I've known this was a problem for a few years now. My inner voice being what it is though, I allowed myself any number of other excuses or possibilities and dodged the problem in any number of artful ways. I've been trying one way or another to deal with it and had no success whatsoever. Based on my past experience in the area of "working out my problems" I realize that awareness of a problem in no way equates to any chance of actually overcoming said problem.
So basically I've come to realize the greatest challenge of my entire professional (and personal) life, and I don't know that I can fix it. Part of me feels that doing so will fundamentally change part of my relationship with music, which, being one of the few things keeping my psyche together is a daunting prospect.
I'll be honest, I have no idea how I'm going to tackle this. I say I'm a professional violinist, I say I'm an artist, but I'm afraid or incapable of doing what I need to do to be that person. Because what, I'll hurt my own feelings?
/rant on
For fucks sake man, have the courage of your convictions and just do it! I didnt' spend the last 28 years of your life pursuing this for you to bitch out now!! God you're so fucking Emo!!!
/rant off
At least that's how I'd normaly snap myself out of these things, only it isn't working this time and I'm not sure what will. I'm tired, I think I'll take a nap.