Kendrick Lamar and Father John Misty both dropped albums on November 22nd, which means I’ve been able to be obsessive and annoying about two wildly different albums at once.
“Coffee and a cigarette. Found no better means of revolt yet” – Father John Misty, “Mental Health.”
“Hey now, say now, I’m all about my Yen. Big face Buddha get my peace from within” – Kendrick Lamar, “hey now.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking I only listen to dour and gloomy songwriters from at least thirty years ago because of the music I occasionally post on my Instagram stories, as well as my general schtick as a performer if you’ve seen that, but I try to stay at least mildly current and enjoy plenty of shit beyond drunk acoustica. While we’re on the subject, the whole sadboy songwriter type is a skin I’m trying to molt anyway– my next record has a happy song or two, and might even have a guitar solo here or there.
Music is the last bastion of creativity I’ve been able to really enjoy lately. You may or may not have noticed that I didn’t write one of these last week, and instead posted something akin to a cryptic telegram about not having anything to say. I suppose I shouldn’t apologize for having a flare for the dramatic. I consider my refusal to write and post last week the result of a healthy choice not to force a thing that, a couple years ago, I almost certainly would have forced, especially when I was in the throes of an MFA in writing.
I had much more of a chip on my shoulder then. Every artistic endeavor had doubly high stakes: high stakes for the sake of the quality of the work itself, and high stakes for my chosen identity (and shield) as the Artsy Guy. Back then, I worked an even more menial job than I do now (which has an office– as opposed to the cubicle I wilted in back then), and I staked almost the entirety of my self worth on “finishing” songs and stories while working full time, often to considerable detriment to my mental and physical wellbeing, if not just from stress alone than from poor decisions I’d make trying to elude the scope of the stress. It’s a habit I’ve since tried to abandon– if not for my own wellbeing, then at least for the quality of the stuff I make. All art takes work, and it might not always only be fun, but I think I make better stuff when I’m having fun with it.
And even if I don’t, I’d rather have fun with it than suffer for a folk song anyway.
So, long story short, I didn’t feel like writing this dumb little blog last week, and so I didn’t. Maybe it was a momentary lapse in discipline or whatever, but it has no bearing on my worth as a human being. At least, that’s the notion I’m currently clinging to, or at least missing one week doesn’t mean I’m worthless in isolation. If I am, there are certainly other, heavier reasons for that. But at least for now I don’t think I am.
I think the way out of the sort of mindset that compels you to do creative things when you really don’t want to is to realize you’re never only just one thing. I’m not just the Artsy Guy. It’s so easy to typecast ourselves. Other things I am, for example: hobbyist blue belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Friend. Partner. Son. Brother. Admin in a maintenance office. Reader. Drinker. Thinker less and less these days, but thinker still. And at least now, precisely, I am a writer, at least for as long as I drag this pen over the page.
The older I get, the clearer it becomes that the actual admirable things about creating anything, whether it be sonic, visual, textual, or whatever else, is the process by which you do it, the discipline with which you approach it, and the reverence you hold for the connections you make in the process of doing it. They emphasized the first two quite a bit in grad school, but not as much the third. I understand why– truly I think there are multiple reasons, one being that grad school, at least the way I went about it, is expensive, and it would be pretty silly to spend a bunch of time harping on how art facilitates human connection when you’re spending 26 grand a year to hone technique. I’d also bet they assume that you already know that, given that you have the mettle, economic abandon, and artistic chops to go to a selective arts program in the first place.
But obvious as it is, that art can bring people together, I think it’s something I either forgot about or considered unimportant while I was making stuff for a couple of years. The human connection piece, that is. To forget that is a fast track to staking your mental stability on your ability to produce, and to making things that exist not to bring you closer to anyone or anyone else closer to another, but solely to reassure your ego of your talents and that you matter and that you aren’t wasting your time in money (which, in hindsight, maybe I was).
It also makes for pretty shitty art, unless you’re an undeniable genius, a con artist, or both. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think my music and writing are both their best when they function as a hand reaching out.
Trying to be creative for reasons other than being the Artsy Guy over the past year has made me think about what keeps me writing and playing music anyway. I do it because on Friday, at my next gig, probably the only people who will show up to hear me play will be my friends, and we’ll laugh over drinks afterward. While I play, I’ll feel the bronze in my hands. The heat of light, and the pound in my chest that both inspires fear and invigorates, a physical referent proving I’m alive and striving for… something, I don’t know what. But then I’ll look out at my friends and be reminded: they’ll sit there enthralled in conversations punctuated by laughter, and while I have the privilege to sit up there in front of ’em making sounds, even though I won’t be a part of those conversations while I play, it will feel like I am. And for a minute, I’ll be able to think, “I did this. I made tonight happen.” All the while, I’ll be reinforcing callouses on my fingertips, and later that night, when I stumble to bed likely buzzed and wired from the latent energy that comes from facing the inexorable fear of performing, as I feel those callouses I’ll be reminded of that laughter, and I’ll sleep a better drunken sleep than I ever get any other night.
Which brings me back to this. As I become further trapped in adulthood, ensnared by more and more responsibilities at work for the same meager pay, busier and busier every week for consistently valid reasons, not getting any younger, and watching the feasibility of long held dreams dwindle, things like this stupid little blog and two hour sets in niche bars on random December Fridays become more and more important. They aren’t just an escape– they’re a ballast that ground and strengthen me to face all the rest, to make the rest of it worth it. Not for the sake of my ego– at least, not entirely– but because I simply enjoy doing them. And, though I remain skeptical, apparently some of my friends and loved ones enjoy the fruits of my endeavors too.
And what would otherwise be only a dreary, fog-drenched Tuesday morning, feels full of… meaning? I don’t know. But it feels full.
matt nilsen 