The New Year has come. 2010. Do you feel any different?
Have you taken an ion shower? Have your wardrobe bots dressed you appropriately? Did you take your breakfast pill? It should have been ham and eggs with biscuits and gravy. A nice, hot cup of tea comes in a separate pill. Did you hop into your flying car on your way to work today?
I feel almost primitive in comparison to the expectations put upon us by nothing more than a number. I’ve never cared much for numbers. This, plus that, equals all well and good. Logic has its place. I could never be a Vulcan. I care more for feel. You know how it is. I can count on what I feel more than I can feel what I count.
When I play a particular piece of music, I do count. It’s not so much of a 1-2-3-4, as a “Uh-uh-uh-ah” in most instances. I do use the 1-2-3-4, but not as a constant. I feel where the beat should be by how it syncs with my heart. I could swear that my pulse changes to suit the music. But don’t quote me on that.
Changes are exactly what I’m thinking about. When am I not? Life is in a constant state of flux. It’s inevitable. With this “New Year,” I’m planning on some even bigger changes than before.
I seem to be coming out of a block that has lasted for quite some time. They come and go but this one was particularly annoying. Every time I thought I was free of it, it just pulled me right back under. I’m no longer allowing that to happen. Along with my music, I’m hoping to make my way back to drawing and painting. I might even get back into sculpting again. All of these are avenues through which I may channel the energies that I have been expelling into the atmosphere unused. It’s raw. It’s a waste to allow such energy to atrophy – to fritter away – uncultivated. In some ways, it can be considered murder. To neglect this living energy until it passes – ceases to be – is murder. How many times a day do we, each or us, as artists, kill ourselves only to do it all over again?
My Plan:
New years require resolutions, do they not? Well, I’ve made some. I have been smoke free for days since the first of the year. That was one of the most important resolutions I’ve made so far. I’m refusing to break this one. As a singer, it’s very important to take care of my voice. I’ve noticed a big difference in recordings from the past and my more recent work, and though I like the rasp I get in some of my heavier songs, I would like to return to a purer sound. I also noticed how much I came to rely on a cigarette to prepare me for a show. No more. It’s not easy to give it up. I’ve moved past the chemical addiction, but the psychological addiction is one hell of a monkey, and my back is tired.
More importantly, I have resolved to allow myself to embrace the creative ebb and flow rather than fight to manipulate it to my will. This will make it easy to handle the dry spells and even easier to connect with that part of myself responsible for the conception and birthing of my artistic offspring. This will keep me as close to sane as I will ever get. It will also help me to see my way from concept to fruition in terms of my projects. Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is find the energy to get started on a project. Those are the projects that find and untimely death – murdered by neglect. There will be no more of this.
Next is focus and organization. I have always been the type to go with the flow. While that’s not a bad thing by any means, like logic, it also has its place. Like a river or a stream, the flow can be shaped and changed over time without creating too much of a disturbance. Then again, disturbance is good for artists. It is when we take charge of this, the flow, that we can comfortably intertwine our creative and mundane lives one to another.
Perhaps, in my own little world, I can create that utopia. It may not have flying cars, meals in pill form, robots to dress me… who needs that? It will be a place where a sense of accomplishment will grow on trees and creativity will roam free. It will be a place where I may count as I please: “1 – uh – 3 – ah.” It will be a place where change is always good. It will be unpolluted by negativity. It will be my own.
The New Year has come. 2010. I do feel the difference.
