Monday, September 22, 2014
Are you a Professional?
Let me explain.
Maybe you're a rock star and you wear all the clothes and you have the entourage and the fans and the houses and cars and "friends"...and you're feeling fulfilled about all of it.
Good for you. You're a professional. But you know you're not all that ...stuff. In fact you care very little about all that.
You think of yourself as a musician - but not with ego, not with pride, just with this internal...this is who I am. You know you can count your friends on one hand, your favorite house is the little house you grew up in in Indiana and no one knows how to find you there, and your favorite shirt is one you've had for years, it's very soft and says Haynes on the label.
What you need is to make music. And very little else. You don't make music for anyone...only for yourself. Sure, it is interesting and it pleases you that there are other people who like it too, if there are. But - it isn't a requirement to whether you make the music or not. It is inside you and you find happiness in expressing it.
But maybe you're a Rock Star and you don't feel fulfilled by it. The money is nice and all. You have great stuff and are surrounded by people who would do anything for you (as long as you are "successful") You don't know how you'd get along without it all.
But the truth is, if you didn't have to do it, you wouldn't. You listen to classical music when you get any time to yourself and wish you had finished your biology degree because you're secretly fascinated by the taxonomy, morphology, cytology, phytogeography of tulips.
For the sake of this conversation you are an amateur Rock Star - no matter how successful you may be by our society's definition of success. And not just that, the world may have benefitted more if you had finished your biology degree rather than played rock music with less than all your heart put into it.
So - have you ever asked yourself this question? If you were the only person left on earth, how would you spend your time? Would you still write music or play your instrument of choice?
Would you still do what you are doing right now?
If you would not, what would you do?
What do you get lost in? What could you spend hours upon hours doing without noticing the passage of time, like you did when you were a kid and you played pretend games?
And I'm not talking about spending time distracting yourself. I'm not talking about escape. I'm not talking about video games or the latest hot HBO series or spending hours on Fac... uh...social media.
Would you explore? Would you build? Would you pilot a plane? Grow vegetables? Make bread? Shop for the most amazing shoes? Work out? Run? Hike? Groom Poodles? Solve two mile long algebra equations? Re-invent the wheel? Climb steep mountain faces?
I know. You are NOT the only person left on earth.
But whatever that is for you. I hope you will consider spending time with it, whether you think you have the time to or not. There is the real world you have to tend to the details of, of course. But how much of that could be minimized so you can nurture and develop what you really want and like to do?
I hope you get to go into your world today and spend some time there. I know I will.
'Til tomorrow!
~Alex
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