I’m currently at work on the next song request I received from you lovely folks. Until I get that wrapped I thought I’d share this with you. This is a longer piece that might feel a little specific if you are not a musician, small business owner, or friend/spouse/sibling/parent to people on these career paths.
Being that it is longer, I’ve decided to record a reading of it…my reading of it. Robert Pattison wasn’t available.
As we forge ahead into the new year this feels like, at least for myself, an appropriate reminder of the importance of balance and maintaining an understanding of where one thrives most. Thanks for reading.
For the last 15 years, I have maintained an independent career as a singer-songwriter and performer. Recently, I’ve been thinking about a career in music as the metaphorical equivalent to finding your way through the desert.
To be clear, the desert represents the career, not the creative work that fuels the career. In this story, I like to think of that part as the rainforest. Meteorologically speaking, the rainforest is a temperamental place where rain is both welcomed—for the life and growth it stirs—and cursed—for its frigid, soggy-bottomed bleakness. Nonetheless, the rainforest is a place that makes you happy. It is where you found your voice. And it is where you continue to toy, tinker, scream in triumph and despair as you witness your latest creations coming to life.
But once the work is complete, you must head to the desert. And this is where our story begins…
In this desert you see only the sun, the sand and the horizon. You don’t know which direction to walk in. The options are wide open; endless. Why? The internet. It flattened the landscape. Now, in any direction one can walk hundreds, if not thousands of miles. There is promise and excitement in this—in the wide open possibility. You have just arrived from the capricious nature of your rainforest dwelling and you’re ready for the sun, adventure, and to share your creation in new lands.
You set off. You seek exposure. You soon find endless opportunities for exposure. It’s the desert after all. You are looking at a large unsheltered and borderless landscape. Exposure is everywhere. You have been told by others who have travelled the desert that, if you’re not careful, exposure can lead to dehydration, a nasty sunburn, and eventually, heatstroke. So you have come prepared: sunscreen, snacks, and a water bottle. You dutifully apply the sunscreen every 2 hours. With the snacks you find yourself a little more carefree in their consumption. Walking through sand is hard work, and you have always been hungrier than the average person.
Now you’re out of snacks. You didn’t think this trip would be so long, or so hot. That’s okay. As long as you have water you’ll be fine. Before you left on this trip you learned that people who engage in hunger strikes with access to water can live months longer than if they go without food and water. As the days roll on you begin to think of this journey as a kind of strike, or in the very least, a holdout of some kind—there are the opposing forces or hurdles, the desire for a change, the fighting for what you believe in, the required strength and courage, the feeling of isolation, of triumph and setbacks, the running out of snacks. You are on the frontlines of your own cause, fighting for your art to be heard; art you believe in. You are proud of your conviction, determination, and special brand of moxie.
Now you’re out of water. How could you be out of water? You had taken the 2 litre jug those seasoned travellers said would be too heavy to carry. One whole litre extra! Now it is empty. And still heavy. You silently curse the travellers. But some of them were overly smug when giving their advice. Smug and weary. You are not smug and weary. You are bright-eyed and keen. So naturally, you believed you knew better. And some day, you might find out that you do.“How long did that magazine article on hunger strikes say I could survive without water?” you think to yourself. But you can’t remember. Your thoughts are getting cloudy, unlike the searing cloudless sky bearing down above you. That’s okay. As long as you can put one foot in front of the other you’ll get to where you’re going.
“Where am I going?” you now wonder. You’ve forgotten. In the future you will realize this is something you have to hold on to; that you’ll need a tight enough grip on direction so as not to lose your way, but enough flexibility to recognize opportunity and opening. But right now you’re lost, without water, and more than likely suffering from heatstroke. So you turn left and head in a new direction. After many miles, your speech is slurring and you feel nauseous. It’s time to turn back.
You return to the rainforest for a temperamental but centering sojourn. You like the rainforest. You wish you could stay here and just do rainforest things but you need to make rent on your rainforest dwelling and pay for your rainforest grocery bill.
So you set off again. You don’t realize it yet, but your determined nature, genetic coding, and blind faith will have you repeat this cycle several hundred more times. Sometimes you find the footprints from your previous trip. You retrace them thinking you must build on your last journey in order to progress. And sometimes you see how far those footprints fruitlessly extend and believe you must chart a new course. Other times you have waited too long between desert trips—because you couldn’t afford the travel costs (ie. camel caravan for the longer treks, desert camp fees, amp rentals, etc.)—and can no longer see any trace of your previous footprints.
In the back of your mind there is always a hope—strong in the beginning, fading with time, but never quite disappearing—that in the middle of the desert you’ll find actor Robert Pattison. You’ve heard he’s helped other people through the desert. By tweeting. Tweeting! Oh the power he must wield. You find him dressed in something that vaguely resembles Hollywood desert costumes—Obi Wan’s Tatooine robes; Peter O’Toole’s headdress from Lawrence of Arabia.
Robert likes music. He likes the way you sound. He will tweet you in the right direction, towards a large swath of his fans who will embrace you, lift you out of the desert, feed you and hydrate you. Robert himself will be airlifted out once he sees you are on your way. Other times you hope it’s Beyoncé. She appears like a desert queen. It turns out that she wants to make you a part of her desert caravan of opulence and bad-assery. But they never show up, only in fever-induced hallucinations where you believe the light patterns in the sand must be the reflections from a sequinned Beyoncé dress.
One day, tired of trying to find your way to somewhere, you decide to plop yourself down in the sand and build a sandbox. You need to see edges. You have been without borders for too long. You build your frame. On your next journey to the desert you bring a small excavator. You see what happens in this sandbox when you pull the levers on your excavator; when you take sand from here and put it over there. You start to shape castles; cities; sand dunes for shade and sliding. You cut a space in your sandbox frame, add a hinge and a spring so you have an open swinging door to let a little more of—well you’re not sure what that “more” is yet—in. You are happy in this sandbox. Sometimes it even reminds you of being a kid, never as much as the rainforest does, but still, it begins to spark joy.
From that distant horizon, you see others coming towards you. They have spotted your sandbox. They think it is beautiful. They ask if they can come in. Some want to help shape, some want to help build, some want to add complementary castles, others want to take some of your sand, not realizing that they have just trudged through a desert full of it. And others want to kick down a castle or two. But you try not to worry too much about these people. You have a swinging door and when the time is right, you can send them on their way.
In your sandbox you have created a world, a community, a playground—a place you can dream and, more importantly, a place you can see. And in these vast lands with their endless directions you can travel; in this desert where you can see only the sun, the sand and the horizon—this is a place you can begin to thrive.
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