and I know what you talkin bout. About living for oneself instead of societies definitions of adulthood and makin it and…

You can do it in every area of life, I’m really sure about that. I’ve been practicing for about 6 years now. takes a lot of practice. possibly some therapy.

So yeah, just have fun with it. Speed can be a good thing. You can always come back later with a fresh mind and change crappy lyrics, arrangement, drum hits &c. But it’s nice to just sit down, and then when you get up, you’ve gotten something, instead of spending hours on end and barely having gotten anything.

I am of the speed mind because it keeps things more fun, PLUS I simply don’t have the time to diddle away until “barely audible” becomes my BEST FRIEND. rrggh

I realize that was somewhat skewed from the topic at hand, but hey.

socetew

An example: as I have mentioned before, I think Hard Normal Daddy is an amazing album, and whenever I venture into any electronic music territory, I’m consciously and unconciously trying to emulate Squarepusher in some way. Because of how well all his tracks are crafted, I become similarly demanding about my own. I’ll listen to a set of drum samples, decide they’re not exactly what I want, despair that I have no idea how to make them the way I want them, think about how long it will take me to figure it out, and then eventually give up.

I did this very thing the other night. But then I went back to the sounds I had, and I wondered to myself, what is creativity if not the ability to make something great out of what you’ve been given? I started doing my thing, and lo and behold, I started liking what I was doing.
There was work involved there, but it was directed work – I could sense that what I was doing was necessary to produce what I wanted to produce, and it lent it that same positivity.

I don’t quite know if that really reveals anything. On the subject of pride, yes, I am more proud of having written those scripts than of my passive listening last night. But I enjoyed the actual experience of writing them far more than I do my pride at having completed them, which is fading each day.

Anyone else care to weigh in on the subject?

I suppose I’m a materialist in that I want to produce things, for myself and to share with the world, rather than just have experiences, so I place a high premium on finishing a thing. That’s definitely something that colors my value judgements about singing, dancing, playing, etc.

I guess pride has something to do with it, too. Aren’t you more proud of having written your KungTunes extension than listening to Bill Evans last night?

However, I need to shut up, lest I contradict my comments from this post.

But that’s not really what I was trying to get at. It’s not quite about happiness based on what you don’t have to do – it’s about understanding exactly what it is that makes you happy. And realizing when some of the other things you might have set as personal goals don’t quite fit in that category. And when I say you, I mean me – it just sounded too narcissistic the other way.

Work is an unavoidable obstacle in the middle of the whole thing. And while the work situation can be improved (especially in my case), I’m trying to delve more into the way we use our own personal time, when work is over. I have a good few hours every night in which to do whatever I will – instead of using it to read silly websites and chat incessantly with my friends on IM, I could be listening to Bill Evans, or focusing on my own music – not for the sake of having something to play at the next open mic, but because it is in itself the thing I want to do.

There is a tendency I think we all have to ignore the voice within us that says it’s OK to live life as we want to live it. We come back from work, our souls in shackles, we sit down to dinner, park in front of the television or computer screen or whatever, and we forget to take them off. We forget that we have come home to our own personal constructed spaces where we can sing and dance and play and laugh and love and do all the things that a human being ought to be doing.

Something like a vacation frees us up for long enough that we remember how to live. I am going back to work on Thursday, and I will be trying my hardest not to forget.

I do wish to point out, however, that it is easy to enjoy oneself when you don’t have shit to do. And I see this is your point; it is essential to recognize those times when you really don’t have shit to do.

If you can tell me how to be happy when you have mounds and mounds of shit to do, then hey, you can be my guru any day.

“Getting there is half the fun.”
“It’s all in the anticipation.”
“It’s the journey that matters.”

and a whole bunch of other wholesome crap.

Nah, but I feel what you are saying NONETHELESS. joys!

cheers, socetew