Validation

Dear Google,

You are not doing a very good job tonight. It's July 4th, and I am in need of some validation from you that my 26 years has left an impression on this planet. It was the kind of night where I was measuring my self-worth based on your search results, and guess what: I'm not feeling fluffy.

The majority of your results were pages I've created myself. Total tweets in reference to me: One. No new comments on my YouTube videos. The few instances in your results where someone else mentions me don't highlight, praise, or adulate as much as they merely mention and enumerate. Yes, I was in attendance at that event. Yes, I performed that piece. But what did you think of me? Did I move you? Did I change you in any way? Or was I like the light in the theater, and just, you know, there?

You may have mapped the globe and revolutionized the internet, Google, but you can't make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

I've been really obsessed with my legacy lately, actually. Some people, no doubt highly intelligent and precariously correct people, would think it silly for a 26-year-old to be concerned with such a lofty concept as his own legacy. It's like describing the sunset over your own gravestone - it's just not something that you think about this side of the curtain. But I have been thinking about it, have been wondering what I'm going to leave this planet when I do eventually leave, and I've realized that if I'm going to leave something tangible, something that lasts, I'm going to have to do a number of things.

Number One is by far the hardest, and also the most necessary: I have to stop being lazy. I have to make creativity a priority, be it music or film or the written word. Every minute I waste in front of a TV or laptop screen is a minute spent not creating, not refining, not developing, not listening to the muses. I'm all about vegging out occasionally, but there has been a devastating lack of productivity recently that is frittering away borrowed time. I have major projects to finish: HFTH, new CD, new pieces, fantasy novel, grad school application... all of them are languishing, lying in a heap, unblinking, waiting for me to resuscitate them. Which leads me to-

Number Two: I have to finish the things that I start. This means that when I write a piece of music or have an idea for a short story, I actually sit and write them down, print them out, put them in a folder. What happens after that is up for debate, but I have to make them exist in the real world outside of my own brain, have to get them onto something durable and lasting and outside of me. And if I commit to a project, I have to see it through to whatever end may come, regardless of whether it comes out any good. Which leads me to-

Number Three: I have to release myself from the tyranny of good. By "tyranny of good" I mean this: Everything I create has to be good right away, and if it's not good, then I failed. This mindset, which rightfully sounded alien and terrifying when I was younger, has overtaken me in adulthood because I'm now creating not just for the joy of creating, but I'm creating with an end-product in mind. "What is this going to do for me?" A new piece has to be good enough to debut and perform for a live audience. A new story has to be good enough to get published. A new film has to be good enough to get seen. But the problem is you can't create from tomorrow, you have to create from now, and if you're fixated on the outcome you can't enjoy the process of creation, the assembling of disparate strands, the refining of those strands until the form is pleasing. Letting go of "good" is not an easy task, especially for an attention-hound like me.

On a happy note, and in direct contradiction to the aforementioned lack of productivity, I'm nearly done notating a new piece that was inspired by the music of Eubie Blake. It's called "The Newbie Eubie," and I'm thinking I'll debut it at the Indiana Ragtime Festival in August. Music has been one fertile area for me recently, and it's been great. It's hard not to want to make it "do more" for me - more opportunity, more chances - but it's one of the few areas of my life where I'm still able to shut some of that out and just play for me.