I begin this article at a minor Point of Change in my life. Another PoC, actually, because I keep creating these changes (although never previously documented by an introspective and vaguely philosophical piece in a culture magazine). This point of change is in achieving my decade-long goal. Well, I do hope it is.
Aged 17, in a bit of a psychological and philosophical pickle, I decided that within ten years I had to either have a) become a successful musician, or b) to not care that I hadn’t become a succesful musician. Being 27, unsuccessful, and unhappy about the fact simply would not do, as that would equate to Total Failure. I then began the business of getting on with my life and left it to my 27-year-old self to pick things up a decade later and assess the situation.
So. Hello.
I have called myself ‘a musician’ since leaving school. While that has always been true, I had also always ‘been’ something else at the same time, in order to keep my income stable — and, to be perfectly honest, to alleviate the terror of being completely free to do as I wanted with my life. It’s a funny thing, isn’t it? As children, the sophomoric yearning for absolute control of our destinies based on our desires — and for having chocolate cake for breakfast if we fancy it — disappears in a puff of rationality, preferring to deal with our own freedom by leaving it to institutions and social etiquette to shape our lives — at least until we’ve got the hang of things. Some people get there many decades before others.
The “Creatives” don’t just get on with life like normal people: we can’t help but wonder what life is really for. If I may wear the hat of someone I recently discovered and admire rather a lot: Jean Klein…
“The root of all desires is the one desire: to come home, to be at peace. There may be a moment in life when our compensatory activities, the accumulation of money, learning and objects, leaves us feeling deeply apathetic. This can motivate us towards the search for our real nature beyond appearances. We may find ourselves asking, ‘Why am I here? What is life? Who am I?’ Sooner or later any intelligent person asks these questions. What you are looking for is what you already are, not what you will become. What you already are is the answer and the source of the question. In this lies its power of transformation. It is a present actual fact. Looking to become something is completely conceptual, merely an idea. The seeker will discover that he is what he seeks and that what he seeks is the source of the inquiry.” I Am, Jean Kleinkbv
I think I can probably hypothesise, with absolute certainty and not too much assumption or conjecture, that an enormous number of people share this intuitively. For some, this is understandably something of an identity crisis. I haven’t quite been able to relate to identity crises, as I have always known who I am, aware of the fact that not-fully-understanding-who-I-am-and-trying-to-work-it-out is itself a fundamental component. I see how I feel, and who I become; I observe the changes in my cognition that initiate new types of decision, and how my actions determine the trajectory of my thoughts. Well, it’s a more engaging pastime than watching The Weakest Link, anyway. I haven’t owned a television in years.
I always had a voracious appetite for work: in the past I would frequently work myself to exhaustion doing stupid, stupefyingly inane minimum wage jobs. But this merely covered my living costs, so I hardly had the financial cushioning to take a leap of faith.
Not at all incidentally, this predicament was actually to become one of the incentives for leaping: I couldn’t be financially worse off doing what I wanted to be doing, but at least I could be richer in time. It’s basic economics: a comparatively rare skill that is in demand finds a higher market value. I would be no less stuck for cash if I only found a few hours’ self-employed work a week. When it came to the leap… well, it was more of a succession of bunny-hops, to be honest, but it covered the whole distance eventually.
Maybe having a side job is imperative to success if, like me, you spend much of your time up in the clouds and could really do with something to tether you to earth. About three years ago I unmoored myself completely, hoping that I’ve acquired enough ballast of wisdom to maintain a steady altitude.
I once worked as a baker, which was absolutely, thoroughly enjoyable. It could have become my career, had I wished it. However, in order to Be Me — and to work somewhat less daft hours — I eventually left the bakery, and in 2015 became just a musician (this turned out to be a fortuitous decision: it later transpired I have a rather severe gluten intolerance. Funny how things turn out). This was the real pinnacle of my working life: the aforesaid Grand Unmooring. My wife, who had been encouraging me to get on with it for two years, eventually had to force me into it, for which I am eternally grateful.
It’s a curious thing that the struggle had always been to aim to find work based on my definition of myself; not to be stuck in the tramlines, but to lay the track in front of me as I went along, so to speak. Retrospectively, the progression is apparent: dropping part-time jobs felt reckless. Then dropping jobs I enjoyed but didn’t fulfill me quite to the brim felt like the natural progression of a career — but to be free to do as I pleased, to have complete control… I simply wasn’t prepared for the most bizarre sensation of giddiness. I very guiltily love the fact that what I’m doing is almost completely inconsequential.
There are a great many problems in the world. The climate is demented, plants and animals are dissolving away in the toxic world created by negligence and greed, people fall out with each other big-time-styley and need putting together again, and here I am, doing a lot of sitting down, teaching music and providing light entertainment.
I have a brain that is probably capable of some reasonably useful careers, instead of twiddling out some tunes on a piano and sometimes writing about it. But, then again, when it comes down to it, my job is just to try to make people very happy, either by helping some of them develop a skill, or to provide the audible equivalent of chocolate cake at any time of day. It’s allowing them to enjoy the moment and to take them away from whatever is bothering them. I teach my pupils to express themselves through music: the most universal and accessible language there is. Pastimes and downtime are as important as work. What you enjoy doing is more of the Youness of You.
