Been on a electronic music binge today as with the previous few days. Went through the uni library's catalogue looking for books, found one that was an e-book, flicked through it, then read the epilogue.
It was the kind of epilogue that goes through all the people featured in the book and details that they died, often tragically and/or in obscurity (most of them were middle-aged musicians in the 1960s but still). One of them became a bitter alcoholic and when she finally got attention in the last years of her life, wallowed about in it. The other remained popular as a cult figure but never created anything new, the last thing she was commissioned to do sounded just like the thing she became famous for.
I am aware the author would've presented the fates of these people in a way according to his agenda/intent and the truth may not have been so dire... nonetheless.
It was a sobering piece of perspective! I think it did more to make me go 'wait... what am I doing?' than any sincere/cynical advice the internet has purported at me for months.
What AM I doing? A lot of my bitterness is justified but it's probably still screwing myself over, yeah? If I somehow get my goofy ass ideas off the ground and I don't get attention, what then? If I DO get attention, will I keep doing the same thing over and over to keep the attention flowing?
Nah son.
I wish it would be as simple as: from this point on I start lifting weights and magically gain the power of talking to strangers and in 6 months (pretty much overnight) I'm a well-adjusted TED Talks speaker who only gets personally sad when something actually sad happens. I doubt that. I sense something has changed, however. Not an inspired 'I can do the thing' call to action, it's not even optimistic, it's something deeper in the bedrock. Shifting plates.