Friday, July 27, 2007

spirit or irrational obsession?

I had two bad days in a row, which doesn't often happen to me. They had me melancholy, retracted, confused, and frustrated enough that I have spent some small amount of time trying to figure out the root cause rather than just waiting for the feeling of gloom to pass. Typically my psychological makeup is such that things just roll off my back and I can move on with life, but when things stick I know there's something up. There's also the fact that a stupor of thought typically leaves me with similar feelings of confusion and frustration, so there's the possibility that there's something the Spirit wants me to do differently.

Salad has talked to me before about the bone-deep desire she has to teach, and how frustrating it is that she can't find a teaching job. Some measure of that desire blindsided me on Wednesday, except that my passion and my desire lie in singing. I have been taking voice lessons for quite a while, I've been in choirs since high school, and it's typically been enough for me. All of a sudden I have this ache to do something with my singing, though. I don't know that being in choir will be enough to fill it. It's like...I want to be in a musical, or working on writing music specific to me, that I could sing and that would be mine.

Part of my frustration is that I buried my dreams of musical grandeur a while back. Music is not a logical career path, so I convinced myself that I wasn't going to pursue it as anything more than a side hobby. Part of that was reasoning that choir was okay, because it was a joint commitment between all the members of the choir, but that any solo pursuits were essentially pointless. Two days of frustration have thrown all of that out of whack in my mind. Why not do more with what I have? Would it have to be to the exclusion of more logical pursuits, or could they be done at the same time? Would it be wrong or selfish of me to want to pursue music with a bit more gusto? And if I did decide to do more with music right now, how would I go about it? I don't know the first thing about the things that would probably satiate this feeling.

And then I have to wonder if this is really Spirit spurring me on, like it mostly feels like, or if it's my own obsessive nature shining through randomly. And is there a whole lot more to my melancholy and overall feeling of BLAH, or is this the root of the problem? Am I spinning my wheels even thinking about it?

Meh.

In other news, Hairspray was fantastic, fabulous, and amazing.

7 comments:

playasinmar said...

Ah, the the stressful life of the young, aspiring musician... how romantic. :)

-L- said...

Well, I don't think I ever got around to thanking you for your advice about personal revelations and the spirit on that other post. So, thanks. Kind of funny that you're working through similar ambivalence. :-)

Also, looking at your blog makes me hungry for sherbet. Mmmm....

Samantha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Samantha said...

Well, I'm a musician, and I love it, so I can't even begin to give impartial advice. But I love that -L-'s smiley face split in half...

I wish you luck. Keep listening to the Spirit.

A school teacher and an aspiring musician...money's not that important, right?

Abelard Enigma said...

We went to see Hairspray this afternoon. My wife was excited to go, I went along reluctantly. I really liked the movie, she was disappointed - go figure.

Kengo Biddles said...

As an aspiring artist, I understand utterly and entirely what you're feeling creatively.

And while it may be a sort of hobby, you can pursue it with vim and vigor. That's my take on it; yes, it's not your breadwinner. (yet.)

pinetree said...

I have pretty much no talent in any musical department, but still have delusions of grandeur about making it big as a rock star or performer. Let me know if you start a boy band or anything.