good music and chocolate makes tough times tolerable
There's a lot of things that are going really right in my life right now. I'm working with a singer as her accompanist, in a professional capacity for the first time (although that won't be a paying proposition for a little while yet; I have to finish learning the songs, we have to record a demo, and then she has to actually book some gigs; but it will be fun). In my efforts to become a decent gymnast I have a theory that I'm making some progress. I'm at least going to class twice a week, and getting some good exercise, and although it's an excruciatingly slow progress, I think I actually am improving and someday I'll be able to do many more things that I want to do with my body. I'm still working on sheet music--another project that is also going slowly but on which I'm making measurable progress. I went running with my roommate on Sunday evening--4 miles--so I haven't actually scheduled myself to run regularly or anything, but even an occasional jaunt is better than nothing. At work, I talked to my boss this week about the nature of my job, and all the things I don't like about it and what will have to change for me to be able to keep my sanity through staying with the company in the medium term. (I think I presented it a bit more kindly than that, but that's the reality.) I don't know what will come of it, but I've at least taken that first step. I've written or called a variety of friends in the last month, some that I have yet to hear back from--so again I'm waiting on that but at least I've taken the steps I need to take to keep in touch.
I feel I must interrupt myself now and mention that my favorite youngest brother Andrew just managed to win 3rd place as the leader of his AISC (American Institute of Steel Construction) Steel Bridge competition team at their Pacific Southwest Regional Conference last weekend. This means he goes to nationals in Florida in 7 weeks' time. Yay. I'm really really happy for him! He put a ton of work into it and it paid off. He designed a superior bridge, and it behaved exactly as designed. Give him two years to graduate and he'll rock the structural engineering world! Of course in the meantime he has Nationals to go win. :) Now back to my regularly scheduled life review:...
With all these various things to try to keep track of in my life, I think my goal of recording my own music is kind of falling behind a bit--but I always knew that as long as I have a full-time job, that's practically impossible to do anyway; so I'm not too surprised. I'm definitely getting better at piano and guitar playing though. On piano I can sight-read like I never could before; and I'm learning some music with jazz chords. On guitar I can play by ear like I never could before, and I'm learning semi-classical stuff; so my skills are improving on both instruments even though I haven't tried recording anything or writing any new music. In about 2 weeks my Dad and brother and I are scheduled to play and sing a song together that is far harder than anything we've tried before together--2 guitars, a bass, a tambourine, and 3 vocal parts--performed by three people. We've been working on it for well over a year, because none of the parts are easy parts. So that's a lot of fun, and since we've been working on it for so long, we have a chance of pulling it off.
Somewhere in the middle of all this I find that I'm doing all these things because I want to and I know they are in line with all my goals; yet I feel uneasy, perhaps unfulfilled, and occasionally unmotivated--or at least, motivated by remembering what my plans were and are, rather than motivated by pure and strong desire to do everything that I'm doing. It's a weird feeling. I feel like I'm doing the best I can do at life, and succeeding, albeit slowly, at all these intermediate pursuits, yet I'm not confident that the ultimate end goal, of becoming the person that (a) I want to be, (b) God wants me to be, and (c) that will help, encourage, and inspire others, and through all of that letting other people see who I really am,... is going to work. Let me explain what I mean, because at face value, I realize that statement doesn't make sense. (If I succeed, it worked, right?) There's something a bit deeper going on here. I wonder, if I become the best that I can be, will anybody actually notice? I have a fear that the path I'm taking in life is too individual, perhaps even anti-social? I want to express myself, but I wonder if people will say, that's great, that's neat, thanks for sharing, and then go about their business. I think I've had this uneasiness my whole life because, exactly that has happened to me a lot, for as long as I can remember. The crux of the issue is, if sharing one's life with other people doesn't lead to other people, people that I can truly identify with, sharing their lives with me, more than has happened in the past, is it worth it? Or should I change something and become a different person than I am at the moment?
I don't want to do that. I think I'll keep giving this path a try for the forseeable future.
I feel I must interrupt myself now and mention that my favorite youngest brother Andrew just managed to win 3rd place as the leader of his AISC (American Institute of Steel Construction) Steel Bridge competition team at their Pacific Southwest Regional Conference last weekend. This means he goes to nationals in Florida in 7 weeks' time. Yay. I'm really really happy for him! He put a ton of work into it and it paid off. He designed a superior bridge, and it behaved exactly as designed. Give him two years to graduate and he'll rock the structural engineering world! Of course in the meantime he has Nationals to go win. :) Now back to my regularly scheduled life review:...
With all these various things to try to keep track of in my life, I think my goal of recording my own music is kind of falling behind a bit--but I always knew that as long as I have a full-time job, that's practically impossible to do anyway; so I'm not too surprised. I'm definitely getting better at piano and guitar playing though. On piano I can sight-read like I never could before; and I'm learning some music with jazz chords. On guitar I can play by ear like I never could before, and I'm learning semi-classical stuff; so my skills are improving on both instruments even though I haven't tried recording anything or writing any new music. In about 2 weeks my Dad and brother and I are scheduled to play and sing a song together that is far harder than anything we've tried before together--2 guitars, a bass, a tambourine, and 3 vocal parts--performed by three people. We've been working on it for well over a year, because none of the parts are easy parts. So that's a lot of fun, and since we've been working on it for so long, we have a chance of pulling it off.
Somewhere in the middle of all this I find that I'm doing all these things because I want to and I know they are in line with all my goals; yet I feel uneasy, perhaps unfulfilled, and occasionally unmotivated--or at least, motivated by remembering what my plans were and are, rather than motivated by pure and strong desire to do everything that I'm doing. It's a weird feeling. I feel like I'm doing the best I can do at life, and succeeding, albeit slowly, at all these intermediate pursuits, yet I'm not confident that the ultimate end goal, of becoming the person that (a) I want to be, (b) God wants me to be, and (c) that will help, encourage, and inspire others, and through all of that letting other people see who I really am,... is going to work. Let me explain what I mean, because at face value, I realize that statement doesn't make sense. (If I succeed, it worked, right?) There's something a bit deeper going on here. I wonder, if I become the best that I can be, will anybody actually notice? I have a fear that the path I'm taking in life is too individual, perhaps even anti-social? I want to express myself, but I wonder if people will say, that's great, that's neat, thanks for sharing, and then go about their business. I think I've had this uneasiness my whole life because, exactly that has happened to me a lot, for as long as I can remember. The crux of the issue is, if sharing one's life with other people doesn't lead to other people, people that I can truly identify with, sharing their lives with me, more than has happened in the past, is it worth it? Or should I change something and become a different person than I am at the moment?
I don't want to do that. I think I'll keep giving this path a try for the forseeable future.