14 de Julio
[A Stream of Consciousness Essay.]
Last night, something interesting happened. I went to university because they were hosting an open dance for salsa. As I mentioned, there were heavy thunderstorms yesterday and, even though it wasn’t raining by the time I got to the amphitheater, the dance party had still been canceled.
My plan, up until that moment was to dance the entire time through and really get my workout in for the day, and then go home exhausted and get a good nights rest. Now that that was out the window I didn’t know what to do so I kind of left it up to the universe. Driving out of the university I noticed that one of the Ivory columned brick buildings here at UNCW was covered in banners and well lit, so I wandered inside. Earlier I’d noticed people going in and out of there and while I was wandering an empty campus I came across an older couple who had just danced a couple of salsa songs by themselves to make up for the cancellation. They told me that the university was playing a movie or something, but it was almost over.
The building was clearly a theatre and inside the closed double doors, I could hear classical music and applause. I took the left-hand curved stairway and found an empty seat on the balcony. It was ballet.
At first, I started to feel sorry for myself. How I always tend to end up at museums or wander into free shows like this alone. But then I told myself to cut it out and realize that if I keep doing that then obviously I’m supposed to keep ending up at these places. It does feel weird though, ending up in these huge public settings alone with no one you know. It feels like virtual reality, like I’m in a hologram. I should remind myself though that if it were a virtual reality then I wouldn’t be so afraid to just approach strangers and engage in conversation. Especially the beautiful girl in the combat boots, curly hair, and with a little tummy showing waiting for her sister to come out of the dressing room after the show.
The show itself was great, I only caught the last 20 minutes of it. It was ballet and it was athletic. Lots of running around, turning, tumbling, spinning, jumping. That high speed didn’t stop as dancers entered and exited the stage for the entirety of the show that I saw. All the dancers were in peach-colored clothes with accents of red and purple. A clear summer theme. There were a lot of couples chasing after each other and tumbling like they were making love in the grass or something. Or at least that’s the image that came up in my head.
I left my phone in the car and when I got back I saw that my friend had called me. He wanted me to come over and make music with him. That was something I was thinking about moments before entering the theatre so I laughed at how funny the universe is and said of course. I’d left my guitar there from the last time we jammed anyway.
The last time we jammed we agreed that we should all form a band. We vibed really well and we sounded really good. The energy was a little less intense this time but maybe that’s because I was sober. I hadn’t been the night before and I was feeling the gloom of it combined with the thunderstorm all day I didn’t want to repeat that today. Plus I needed to prove to myself that I could get in an artistic state without outside help. I didn’t want to start relying on that so early on.
And it is early on for me as a vocalist. My voice is still getting stronger and all the skills I need to not be so repetitive in my voice… I’m still learning them. But that was fine since this was just a jam and I could stay on one riff if I wanted to and just focus on the quality of my voice. That felt really cool.
After that, one of the other guys jamming with us said that we should show up at this party and have something prepared because there would be a ton of girls there. So, I told him I already had a dong written and I showed him “Waves” and hearing myself talk about it was amazing because I sounded like a real songwriter.
I had to instruct each of them on the individual rhythm of their parts, we were saying things like “Ok, so from there you go to the bridge and that repeats two times before you go back into verse one. Now, remember on that part that’s where the harmonies start to come in and I want you on the bottom notes. I’ll take the high notes since I’m the only one who can sing that high and you take the middle. Ready?”
I could imagine the way I looked when I was in that state. When I’m really creative I bob my head a lot more and I rock out to the music of the universe that I’m listening to, whether that’s actual music or writing or painting. What I’m worried about is the dedication. Because anybody who’s great at something spent an amazing amount of time doing basically just that one thing over and over and over again. I’m trying to make that happen by writing more and making music more, but I’m worried that I don’t have the time.
I know the simple answer to that, make the time. I’m also worried that I will have to choose between writing and songwriting. I really hope not. I really hope there is some way that I can enrich all of my artistic pursuits and I feel like that exists but I just haven’t found it yet. But then there’s that other voice in my head. The voice that is simultaneously Garry V, Marcus Arraleus, and my father telling me no. That if I want to feel divided in the way that I have for so long, then keep doing what I’m doing. Keep spending a little time here writing, a little time here is a musician, and reap the fruits that that will sow; small, sour, and infertile. Or choose to follow one path strictly and with faith. Spend a whole lot of time doing that one thing, and choose to reap the benefits of that choice. Either way, the choice is mine.
That coupled with my anxiety that I really wish I had started a lot more of this when I was nine really starts to scare me. But then I think about how when Vincent Van-Gogh was 28 he made the decision to paint. And he painted and painted and painted. I’m twenty-four and I’m writing and writing and writing.
I still make a lot of mistakes, I still do things that don’t make me feel so great, but those mistakes are there for a reason. Take for example this morning, I slept in again. I woke up early, checked the surf cam and saw that there were absolutely no waves. That’s something that’s been happening a lot recently. I told myself that my skateboard was right there. That if I just hopped on my skateboard, did a couple of laps around the neighborhood I would feel great and wouldn’t need to go back to sleep. And instead, I made the choice to eat some Peta Bread and Peanut butter and go back to sleep until 11:30. So what can I learn from that? I can learn that the decision for that momentary and instant gratification was not worth the way I’m feeling now. Because now I’m feeling rushed.
But I think I can also learn to check my language. Because telling myself “I’m feeling rushed,” will only increase that feeling in me. Because I’m not only feeling rushed. I’m also feeling proud of myself enough to know that after sleeping that long I felt groggy and I wanted to sit down and write so I put on some Youtube about a classical musician digesting different genres and did a total of 100 sit-ups, push-ups, and squats, as well as 250 jumping jacks. I still feel a little sleepy but that was enough to stop me from getting back into bed.
I know that this process is slow but I usually feel pretty pleased with myself if I have made some kind of progress every single day. I know that it is the collective effects of little gradual steps that get any one thing done, not some herculean effort. I think another thing to remind myself is “let’s just focus on getting everything done,” before we start to worry.
What I mean by that is I have some very clear and very immediate things I can do right now to make myself feel better. Logistical things, things that aren’t very fun but things that I’m sure by not having done are blocking my energy from receiving the next thing in my life. Things like switching my car insurance to North Carolina or fixing the surf rack on the back of my bike, or getting my car window to roll up so that I don’t have to keep putting a plastic bag on it every time it rains.
Another interesting thought process I have is the idea that “I’m never going to be able to make this work” when I’m thinking about living the laptop lifestyle when I literally have assignments right now. They just aren’t assignments I’m incredibly thrilled about so I procrastinate on them. But I have to be real with myself. I’m not only procrastinating on them because I’m bored with them. They’re boring because they are simple and straightforward which means that they are pretty easy to handle. I’m avoiding them because I know that completing them would mean leveling up to the next person I need to be, and that’s pretty scary.
So I think the simplest solution to all of this is to just get back to work. Any time I start to feel any of those things, I think I can remedy it with doing the opposite of freezing and getting at least one micro-step closer and keep doing that until I’m done. I know that mindfulness and being aware of what my inner voice is telling me is important too. I know becoming a workaholic will not fix my ennui in any way. But I’ve been avoiding work for a long period of my life now and I think that in this season of my life it’s time be incredibly busy.
The bullet Journal is helping with that a lot. I’m still improving my system, and I’ll probably be doing that for years and years to come, but just having all my goals and wants written out in front of me is such a game-changer. It’s amazing how powerful having your life written out in front of you can feel. Having your obstacles written down in front of you changes your relationship to them. Suddenly they aren’t part of the black cloud of chaos, they are quantifiable and approachable.
Right now I’m thinking about how I must sound. I can imagine some stranger on the internet reading this and saying “Jesus, this guy is so fucking philosophical. Can’t he just get to work and stop thinking so much?” and to answer that hypothetical question from my subconscious: I’m not so sure. I’ve heard that as you get older you stop caring so much about what people think about you and you start to just accept that “this is who I am.” And the fact that I’m an “overthinker” has bugged me for a long time. It’s always struck me as something to be fixed, something I need to learn to get under control if I’m ever going to have a happy life.
But if I wasn’t the way I am then I wouldn’t be an artist, a writer, a musician, an illustrator, a web designer, a content creator, a world traveler, a surfer, and a businessman. So I’ll take the cost. It’s “the weakness to my strength” as they say. And there are times when it shows heavily, but the good news is I can’t change that about myself. I will probably always have to be walking the delicate line between going into overwhelmed (although I don’t know if that ‘s the best way to think about it) but that’s fine because I know that with age I’m just going to get better and better at it. So the problem won’t go away, but It makes me happy to think about that problem as more of a tax than anything else. The cost of me having such a high intellect is the fact that this intellect gets in the way sometimes, and that’s fine, we’ll work with it.
I did start to get really low last night after I had taught them most of the song. I looked around at where I was and I started to get really ungrateful. Thinking I should be someplace else, with different people, doing better things. I really started to feel sorry for myself and very very lonely. I really missed my family and then I started to feel so torn between all the different things I want to do with 2020.
Do I want to live in New York? Or do I want to go back to California? I’ve been saying I want to go to Mexico and wouldn’t right now be the perfect time to do it? But I just miss my family so much and I would love to be able to see them more. And then I start to think about how much I love having a town, feeling at home in a place, and how every time I get close to doing that, I up and leave. I think in this process that you (if anybody is reading this) will be along with me for, I am going to try and figure out a situation where I can have a base that I feel comfortable in. A town with a culture I like and can work from, and then arrange my year around multiple trips.
That, of course, is the ideal, and I tend to work only in ideals, not being prepared for the reality but hey, I’m learning and at least I’m still here writing. I’m feeling good about this daily log, I think even three days in I’m noticing the benefits of writing stream of consciousness style with no pressure to make sense. Just think. Just go. A lot of interesting thoughts bubble up and then I can analyze them where they otherwise might have just stayed below the surface. Invisible but affecting me nonetheless.
