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Terror Incognita
Mar. 8th, 2011 11:20 pmA question... Rhetorical, or not, depending on whoever reads this & the even fewer who would answer.
Since the mid-80s at most & the late 80s at least, I've defined myself as a musician ~ primarily as a guitarist & over the last 25 years or so, increasingly as a writer of original music with the idea that it be performed by a group of players... preferably including myself... & that it reach, if not a huge audience, then at least an appreciative one.
However ~ with the demise in early 2009 of my last attempt at forming a group of players suitable for said ambitions, I've been increasingly distancing myself from the ideal & its practice that has sustained me for decades to the exclusion of any other profession to which I may have been suited. More simply ~ I'd never taken the whole 'career' prospect seriously at all, unless it involved playing music, so any 'day-job' has taken position well behind my musical ambitions in my list of priorities.
Currently, I find myself in a retail sales job, not dissimilar to those I had in the early 90s, working for a company which seems to think fostering an air of hostility & fear is an effective way to motivate staff... when all it does is encourage backstabbing, demolition of any 'team' spirit & the idea that kicking colleagues in the head as you climb over them is acceptable conduct.
One way or another, I have encountered this kind of thing throughout my working life ~ I mean my working life supporting my lack-of-musical-career. In the now accepted absence of that desired career, I find I have no patience & even less tolerance for such belief & behaviour.
And yet... music still calls to me. I still get a kick out of playing any of the neglected instruments that lie around the place. I still listen to music with a player's ear ~ isolating each instrument's part, appreciating its skill & technique, then allowing it to blend with the others to feel its complementary nature & enjoy that as well. I still harbour 'The Dream' of finding the right combination of players with the skill, drive, hunger, desire &, most importantly, availabilty to make my rock'n'roll dreams come true, even at the age of (almost) 44.
Because the alternative is to give it up & concentrate on advancing the 'career' that will keep me gainfully employed for the next 20 years & hopefully contribute to my sustainability for a while past that. And simple, time-&-soul-wasting Retail Sales jobs aren't going to do either of those things.
I'm happy to knuckle under & down to the prospect of becoming 'financially fixed by 50'... abandoning the musical dream & putting away the childish things associated with it (the guitars alone would fetch a reasonable price... even on E-Bay).
But should I??
On the one hand, I have a reasonably acknowledged talent for composition & performance. On the other, I have life & professional skills built up over the same amount of years I've been playing. One side has kept me going. the other has paid for me to do so.
I find myself at not so much a crossroads as a T-junction, where the road I've been on is definitely ended, now I have to choose a new direction... where either my spirit or my body will starve.
Faith vs Pragmatism... What to choose??
Since the mid-80s at most & the late 80s at least, I've defined myself as a musician ~ primarily as a guitarist & over the last 25 years or so, increasingly as a writer of original music with the idea that it be performed by a group of players... preferably including myself... & that it reach, if not a huge audience, then at least an appreciative one.
However ~ with the demise in early 2009 of my last attempt at forming a group of players suitable for said ambitions, I've been increasingly distancing myself from the ideal & its practice that has sustained me for decades to the exclusion of any other profession to which I may have been suited. More simply ~ I'd never taken the whole 'career' prospect seriously at all, unless it involved playing music, so any 'day-job' has taken position well behind my musical ambitions in my list of priorities.
Currently, I find myself in a retail sales job, not dissimilar to those I had in the early 90s, working for a company which seems to think fostering an air of hostility & fear is an effective way to motivate staff... when all it does is encourage backstabbing, demolition of any 'team' spirit & the idea that kicking colleagues in the head as you climb over them is acceptable conduct.
One way or another, I have encountered this kind of thing throughout my working life ~ I mean my working life supporting my lack-of-musical-career. In the now accepted absence of that desired career, I find I have no patience & even less tolerance for such belief & behaviour.
And yet... music still calls to me. I still get a kick out of playing any of the neglected instruments that lie around the place. I still listen to music with a player's ear ~ isolating each instrument's part, appreciating its skill & technique, then allowing it to blend with the others to feel its complementary nature & enjoy that as well. I still harbour 'The Dream' of finding the right combination of players with the skill, drive, hunger, desire &, most importantly, availabilty to make my rock'n'roll dreams come true, even at the age of (almost) 44.
Because the alternative is to give it up & concentrate on advancing the 'career' that will keep me gainfully employed for the next 20 years & hopefully contribute to my sustainability for a while past that. And simple, time-&-soul-wasting Retail Sales jobs aren't going to do either of those things.
I'm happy to knuckle under & down to the prospect of becoming 'financially fixed by 50'... abandoning the musical dream & putting away the childish things associated with it (the guitars alone would fetch a reasonable price... even on E-Bay).
But should I??
On the one hand, I have a reasonably acknowledged talent for composition & performance. On the other, I have life & professional skills built up over the same amount of years I've been playing. One side has kept me going. the other has paid for me to do so.
I find myself at not so much a crossroads as a T-junction, where the road I've been on is definitely ended, now I have to choose a new direction... where either my spirit or my body will starve.
Faith vs Pragmatism... What to choose??
