Just follow the bass part

I used to pride myself on listing all of the things that I could do. I’m a musician, recording artist, writer, videographer, producer, recording engineer, an Aquarius. Christ. Anything else? Who is it that I was trying to impress? Probably just about everyone. Why was that so important? (Psychologically-speaking, I know why, but that’s not the point at the moment…) After the initial novelty of hearing my resume, I gather that most people returned immediately to resting mode, not caring much about it at all. So how many people did I manage to impress? One or two that I can remember. How many did I exhaust? I don’t know. Maybe everyone. I know I was tired. If you’re trying to impress others by overwhelming them, you have to keep topping yourself in order to impress them again and again. Especially if being impressive is your m.o. How many times can you blow the same person’s mind before you collapse in a heap, let alone the mind of everyone you meet? And what a terrible bore it is to have be terrific all the time!

I find that while I’m proud of my abilities as a multi-instrumentalist, it might have been better if I’d have just stayed with my first passion, the electric bass. Instead of that, I systematically learned every other instrument I could get my hands on. I soon became proficient enough to record albums all by myself. I needed no one’s help to realize my visions. On the surface, it sounds great. The reality of it however, is that if enough people see you doing anything alone, they get the idea that you don’t need anyone at all, including them. Not even to listen. So what was the point of making the music in the first place? Good question.

I could take a great deal of symbolic direction from the bass. You must have other musicians to work with if that’s your instrument. If that was the instrument that I chose, it speaks volumes about what my musical intentions were in the first place. The intentions were lost in trying to be impressive and superhuman. Somehow I got the idea that being superhuman was important. It isn’t. It isn’t any fun either. It leads directly to madness on many levels. No one with any real success has achieved that success in total isolation. No matter what Gene Simmons says, he didn’t do it. Not by himself.

I’ve taken recently to making it clear that which I cannot do. I’ve added to the list of things I cannot do, the things that I might be able to do with enough effort, but bring misery and distraction. A great example is web design. I hate web design. It’s a black hole of time for me. All I ever want to do is make my music or writing available on the Internet and before you know it, I’m completely submerged in code, exhausted and frustrated. I don’t want to be a web designer. That’s why I use somebody’s template to do this blog. I wanted to post writings and ramblings, not learn about feeds, syndication and php scripting. So I didn’t.

What a great thing it is to be human. It’s even better to do one thing well. These are goals I want to achieve in my lifetime.