WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOUR WORLD FALLS APART?
Anyone that knows me even a little bit will know that i'm obsessed with music. I've been playing guitar, piano, drums, and a number of other things during the past 5 years, inspired when I first saw the music video for Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" (cheesy as all get out, I know, but true!). My music library is home to over 50,000 songs of ALL kinds. And I mean all kinds. Those people that say they listen to everything would be quite challenged to take a dive into a shuffle playlist that I conjure up when i'm in a curious mood, and for good reason, because I like all kinds of music; diversity in creation is something God bestowed upon us as artifacts of His image, and I thoroughly enjoy basking in that resulting reservoir.
For about a year now, i've been writing reviews for a website called Review Rinse Repeat, which has been a great experience, and while I often get trolls like mad, I express my opinions in the most unapologetic manner because I derive joy from expressing myself in the clearest and most earnest way possible. Which leads to my predicament...
Every now and then, for the past two years mainly, i've been writing little diddies which could be mistaken for songs. I write them for any number of reasons. Some i've written to help get me through hard times. Some songs are the result of putting music to lyrics that a friend or acquaintance wrote. Mostly, though, to express myself, just like in the reviews. But as I have acquired more and more recording equipment, a behemoth of a motive has risen up from within me. It's taken me a while to pin it down, and I think it's several things manifesting themselves, but the forefront is one thing: pride. I've told several people that i've never written a song that I was proud of. Not one. Now, that's plenty enough to get one in a discouraged funk, but there's a lot more to it.
It isn't really that i'm jealous and envious of other song-writers who write moving and compelling pieces, though that happens from time to time. It's more that I am very hard on myself, perhaps. And yet, amidst the murk that is my horribly harsh judgment, I realize a grim truth: I can't write good songs. What goes into defining a 'good song' is impossibly difficult, and I won't go into that now, but the fact remains: I lack the ability. I've been trying, for years, to force something out of me that isn't there, and I end up getting frustrated and burnt out because of it. Focus and determination are things that really are foreign to me, but 2 years is enough time to realize that i'm not waiting for a Thomas Edison moment, i'm waiting for a Don Quixote moment. And it's come at last.
Beyond the other reasons that have arisen (the world has plenty enough songs, and no one will like my music anyway, ad nauseum), the realization that I can't write music just shattered my spirit. Writing music was what I had always wanted to do, and now realizing that that dream has to be put to rest is proving hard to cope with. I had thousands of dollars of equipment, plenty of instruments, and time on my hands, but the results never came. This is truly one of the most jarring, depressing, and surreal realization to have struck me in my life.
SO....WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOUR WORLD FALLS APART?
"And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Fools fold their hands and ruin themselves. Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind" - Ecclesiastes 4:4-7
There's a new void in my life, one that i've never really had to face. The proverbial chapter in my life of false aspiration is closing, and I must come to grips with doing something useful and productive with my time, one that ends not in toil and chasing after the wind. It will be hard, and difficult, and truly, truly I am demonstrating a great deal of melodramatic valor, but embellished as it is, there is truth in this post - I am putting off making and playing music for an indefinite amount of time. Until a new revelation falls upon me, I will continue writing reviews and enjoying others' musical endeavors and songs, for that really has been my handful of tranquility.
