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The Importance of Reminders
Some days I wish I were a wise old sage, able to conjure the profoundest of philosophies to complement any moment or opportunity that might present itself. Or I wish I were like Wilson from Home Improvement, a human library filled with quotes that spanned centuries of the greatest thinkers throughout history. I see websites devoted to reflective quotes and their everyday application to our lives, I read stories of people who were seemingly inspired to do their life’s work by a brief passage in a book.
On Perfection
Perfection is what you get when you stop expecting it of yourself. I didn’t always think this, though. Until recently, I spent most of my life fancying myself a perfectionist. I took pride in my opinion that over the course of one short life, the only way to truly reach your full potential was to strive for nothing less than perfection in everything you can possibly control. There was just no point in living any other way.
The Self-Help Delusion
I think it’s time to get over this whole “self help” thing. There is an entire industry based around telling us that they have the elusive secret to happiness, that if you just read this book, watch that video or do these exercises you can become a better, fuller person. I’ve read a lot of stuff like this, and even though I appreciate good advice, I’ve come to almost resent the whole idea of “self improvement.” I resent it because it tricked me into putting my energy towards trying to find something that I had all along.
Cynicism In Action
I’ve been called cynical a good number of times in my life. Most of these times were when I was a little younger, particularly in my teenage years when I wore the label as something of a badge of honor. I believed that cynical people weren’t deserving of criticism because they simply saw things for what they really are, which just happened to be a harsher view than the average person. I felt as though being called cynical was really just a way of saying that I thought differently and saw clearly. I was proud of that.
Committing to a Mistake
Lessons I Learned From Being Poor
I was very fortunate to have grown up in relative comfort as a kid. While my family wasn’t exactly wealthy, there was never a question of whether there would be food on the table or bills would be paid. I was encouraged not to live wastefully and to be smart with my money, but it was never a situation where we were conserving energy for fear that we wouldn’t be able to cover the electric bill.
Then I went to college.
Now Is All That Matters
I was staring irrelevance straight in the face, and I didn’t like it. The conversation began innocently enough: We’re in an interesting time musically, I was explaining to a friend, because popular music as we know it was created at a time that has allowed us to see an amazing amount of creative innovation, but recently enough that we don’t have to be completely overwhelmed with the amount of music we could potentially explore as listeners and performers. (Though sometimes I still do feel overwhelmed when trying to cover enough musical ground to feel as though my grasp of music history is reasonably comprehensive.)
The Making of Meaning
For millennia, man has wondered the same thing, over and over: do our lives have meaning? Is there some larger purpose that transcends the biological, evolutionary machines that are our physical bodies, something more important than basic survival and reproduction?
Above the Clouds
One morning in high school, I woke up and looked out my window. It was gloomy; a thick, charcoal cloud blanketed the entire sky and light rain dive-bombed from above. On this particular day, I would be flying west to Colorado to go camping with my sister and her family. I was never a big fan of flying on days like this, but there was no use complaining about the inevitable. I groggily packed my things and shuffled out the door.
I sat in my airplane seat as it taxied to the runway and felt ambivalent. I was excited to go on a trip, but less than enthused about the flight that would precede it. It’s not that I was a nervous flyer… I just didn’t feel like sitting in a cramped seat for five hours and breathe recycled air while snacking on stale pretzels. Waking up to dreariness had affected my demeanor accordingly.
Is Art For the Artist or the Consumer?
During a recent recording session, I had a conversation about creating music and art for yourself vs. creating it for others. In some ways you create art for yourself, because it is a fulfilling thing that expresses a part of you. In other ways, the moment you have created something, it is no longer yours and suddenly becomes the emotional property of someone else.
So which is it? How can art be both for ourselves and for others’ enjoyment?
Persistence and Rejection
So much of how successful we are is determined by our ratio of persistence to rejection. Everything worth doing requires persistence, and everything done well requires the ability to handle rejection. The key to being successful (among other important things such as talent and intuition) is making sure your persistence outweighs your tolerance for rejection.
Every person who is successful, whether in a professional or personal capacity, has failed far more times than not. But I think most of us know that already. If you couldn’t take failure, you probably wouldn’t be at the point in your life where reading a blog post like this would even interest you. You’d already have resigned yourself to another life pursuit. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, I might add.
I Don't Need to Be Brilliant
I put a lot of pressure on myself. I am my own worst critic. I cut myself less slack than anyone else possibly could. If I don’t, I might create something that sucks. I might make myself vulnerable to legitimate criticism. I could cut off the bad stuff at the source and let only the most brilliant, genius, groundbreaking material get out into the public. That would be such a relief. Then I’d know everything I create will be wonderful, because I’ve already given myself so much shit and demanded I be great from the start.
If only it worked that way.
Do What You Hate
In my last post, I talked about doing what you love no matter how good you are at it. But it’s also important to do what you hate—as long as you know when to stop.
That might sound counterintuitive, but the fact is, using life to figure out what you don’t want is far easier than just picking the things you think you will want. By process of elimination, it’s the best path to finding what you should do with your life.
Don't Stick to What You're Good At
I was listening to an album of solo acoustic guitar music played by a virtuoso of the instrument, when suddenly it came to a track where he started singing. My first gut reaction to his less-than-stellar vocal ability was to say, “Whoa dude, stop. Stick to what you’re good at.”
But then I realized that’s complete bullshit.
Don't Tell Me How to Be Happy
There are a whole lot of people out there telling me what would make me happy. Trouble is, most of them are also trying to sell me something, so it’s with a healthy dose of skepticism that I listen to their advice.
Your Idea Is Not An Accomplishment
I have a habit of writing things down. Lots of things. everything, actually.
Part of the reason is that I’m scatterbrained. I’m bombarded by a constant internal cacophony of ideas and thoughts that have nothing to do with one another—songs, jokes, movies I want to see, blog post topics, etc. They tend to happen at inopportune times, like when I’m having a conversation with a friend or while I’m driving on the freeway. At home I write thoughts in a notebook or on my computer, away from home I write them in my phone. (I hate typing on phones, by the way, and this is only exacerbated by the fact that I am the last person on Earth who hasn’t upgraded to a smart phone.)
Artistic Naiveté
For anyone who’s living a life of creative pursuits, being realistic about our chances of making it to the next level isn’t something that we generally take into account. Like I said in my post about the romance of the ideal a few months ago, most of us tend to live life with our heads in the clouds, and maybe one or two toes scraping the ground for good measure. After talking with a friend about the inevitable umbrella of naiveté that we musicians have to live under, I realized a few things.
There are two kinds of artistic naiveté. One is good, and one is bad.
To be fair, it could be argued that both are bad, but nobody who has devoted their life to pursuing near-impossible goals like musicians and artists is going to lock horns with me on this one. We’ll leave that to the folks who are always wondering when we’ll grow up and get real jobs. Anyway, the good naiveté is that which we use to ignore the odds of turning art into real income. I’ve been playing in bands since I was a teenager, and I’ve been spending the better part of my last five years working on developing my current band. As much as I believe in the music we’re making, as good a band as I think we are, the simple fact is that the law of averages is against us. For every band that makes a living from their music, there are hundreds that never even came close. Maybe even thousands. And being good is no more a guarantee to your success than being lucky. Being smart about your music career is a must, but that’s a topic for another day.
There's Always Someone Better
Everyone has known that one person who seems to be good at everything; specifically, the person that is better than you at everything. It even seems like the things that you’re especially good at are the things they are especially better at. If you don’t know that person now, you probably did when you were a kid, and it probably brought a whole host of emotions out of you.
When I was younger, I used to get angry and jealous of that person.
I loved drawing cartoons as a kid, and I was sort of good at it. Good enough to get noticed for it, anyway. Then I made friends with a kid who was particularly advanced at art. I was OK at copying a drawing from a comic book, but he could conjure up his own images that looked ready to be printed by Marvel. When he was around, I felt like he stole my thunder. I felt like he took away the one thing that made me stand out. Although I certainly admired his natural skill, I was also jealous.