I don't use LJ-cut for length, I use it for things I don't want people to have to look at.

[cosmolinguist]

I used to do things. I used to love things. Now I will insist that I still do, because I think that is hard-wired into my brain, and as long as I am me I will believe that I have a lot of energy, passion, love, whatever I want to call it, to spend on the world.

And I remember doing just that. I used to be crazy about certain things. Music comes to mind. In several forms, I was in love with music. I played guitar not to get better but to make me feel better. It was a happy pastime even though I never acquired much skill at it.

Playing music in general was never that easy for me; when we were young my brother and I took piano lessons, and though neither of us practiced when we could get away with it, he woudl do fine during the next week's lesson, whereas I would crash and burn all too often. Mom would always say that he must have "a musical background," as if that's a gene you can inherit (his "background," like mine, is shrouded in mystery since we are adopted (and not at the same time, so we're not technically related either)), which drove me crazy, because I saw music as a thing of beauty and feeling, a matter not of DNA but of soul.

When we were a little older we were in band. I'd been looking forward to it; he was coerced by our parents. I wouldn't doubt that he does have a knack for musical proficiency, but he never cared about it, never put it to much use, just goofed around with his friends who were also in band for some reason. I was mediocre, but I loved band. I even liked marching, which nobody liked. I'm sure most of them disliked the very things I liked most about it: it was harder than concert or jazz or pep band, it required the most discipline to keep ourselves from looking like total dorks (and the line between an impressive marching band and a dorky marching band is very thin, but very distinct), it was an involved experience that took a lot out of you. I played half a dozen instruments in the course of my last three years of high school: clarinet, bass clarinet, guitar, electric bass, bassoon, and tenor sax (okay, that's stretching it a little; I started that the summer after I graduated). I was a band nerd. After the last song of the last concert my senior year, the director announced that year's winner of the John Philip Sousa Award, which is a little piece of marble given to a senior to say, basically, "you were cool, you did good things for the band and now it's recognizing you for it." I was apparently the only person who was surprised that I got it that year.

I went to college and signed up for band but that didn't last long. I had conflicts in more than just my schedule. I wanted to be in jazz band and play the tenor sax I'd been wanting to learn since I was in fourth grade and somehow found myself with a clarinet instead, but rehearsal was at the same time as speech meetings and, for reasons still unfathomable to me, I took speech instead. My parents and my high school band director couldn't believe I wasn't doing anything musical. The next summer I sold my guitar (the one I hadn't traded to get the saxophone) to a friend of mine. I play it when I go to his house--and feel nostalgic--but only a little.

This is just an example, probably the most obvious but really just an indicator of a larger pattern I'm seeing. College left me so busy for so long that my previous hobbies, or passions, or whatever they were, mostly drifted away. Not only did I not mind, I think I barely even noticed. Now I notice, and now I don't care about them anymore. Which would be okay except I haven't replaced them with anything new.

Now my days go to waste and I don't want to sit around thinking about how obvious it is that I'm unhappy because I don't do anything, and at the same time wondering I could do. I don't think I am irrevocably pathetic but I know I'm not firing on all my cylinders right now either. I don't really know what to do about this either, one cannot just put an ad in the paper. Wanted: more reasons to be happy and productive and feel like I'm leading an okay life. I know that's not how it works, I know these things come naturally because they used to for me.

In light of this, perhaps it's not so surprising that not only do I no longer want my English major, I'm unsure of what I'd like to do instead.

I might sound depressed but I don't feel depressed. I have felt that way before and I know this isn't it. I'm fine now, almost happy at the moment, which is striking considering my subject matter. But this makes sense, and I usually do pretty well with things that make sense to me. Stating the problem well means you're half way to the solution, right? I think I learned that in a math class.

(Edit: I seem to be giving the impression, at least to some people, that I am currently looking for my vocation in life. Though I am indeed lacking one, that's another rant altogether; all I meant here is that I need more things to do that I care about and have fun with. Not as a job, necessarily, but as a diversion for whatever leisure time I give myself.)

Comments

[kwakhed.livejournal.com]

yeah, that is from either a math or a physics class.

go find something to play. an old keyboard. an nylon string acoustic (classical?). something. i'm just starting to pick up my guitar again and have to totally rebuild my callouses. but i love what i hear my fingers doing in the meantime. even when it hurts or strings are buzzing or i'm taking long pauses to figure things out.

i used to care about it a great deal more, and wonder why i ever stopped, or let it slip. it sounds like you cared a lot more than i ever did -- don't let it get too far away; don't deny yourself too much.

[cosmolinguist]

People who can talk about physics and guitars and caring in just a few sentences are cool. :-) Thanks for the advice and good thoughts.

[jasonmichaels.livejournal.com]

This is interesting because I think it is a crossroad we all reach in life. I would say that since 80% of this post is reminiscent of music, perhaps your own subconscious is trying to tell you that maybe you are moving away from what you NEED (love) to do (music) that provides the motivation you need to feel passionate about life. As opposed to the more common, safe, and logical road of your current situation.

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."~Friedrich Nietzsche

If you are interested in music theory, learn about the Major scale and memorize the steps (Whole, Whole, half, Whole,whole,whole,half/Octave). (you may find that you already know them) Once you have learned that, all other scales and modes (Ionian,Dorian,Phrygian,Lydian, Mixolydian,Aeolean,Locrian) are based on the major scale, and all chords are stacked intervals of the scale/mode you are in. When this all falls into place, things start to make sense. You mentioned guitar, which is what I play. The pattern shape nature of the instrument makes it great to learn the steps of each scale.

"Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow."~Plato

[cosmolinguist]

While I'm not sure music is feasible or good for me to pursue as a career (even in high school I didn't think that was necessarily my calling in life), I'm not sure if anything else is feasible or good either.

And I think those quotes are excellent. :-)

[autumnsshadow.livejournal.com]

The only advice I'd have is to make a list of anything and everything you're interested in pursuing. Then take a look at how important each is to you and why. When you want to do something, you can't take other people's opinions into consideration first. Sure, you can take advice, but the outcome of most of the things you want to do probably only affects you, so why not just go for it. There will probably always be someone who disapproves of whatever you decide to take on, but never let that person be you.

[ex-humanfema327.livejournal.com]

Everyone has already said all the useful things. So - Yay! Bass Clarinet!

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I liked the bass clarinet. I discovered that, though a woodwind player, I liked really low instruments. I didn't know that, though, until after I started playing bass clarinet and then bassoon. I got to sit next to my friends in the baritone section and play about the same things as them. I didn't have to deal with the rest of the clarinets, who were mostly a pretty scary bunch of tiny, blond, whiny girls who played very quietly and hunched over in their seats.

I even talked my band director into letting me march with bass clarinet one summer! It only lasted a parade or two before I broke my foot, but until then it was cool.

[ex-humanfema327.livejournal.com]

You dropped the bass clarinet on your foot then? Sorry, I havent read back more than 50 entries or so. I will when i get my own computer.
Ive got an alto clarinet too.. It's strange. No wonder theyre rare.
Bassoon is the best ever. I should have concentrated on that instead. Are you good?

[cosmolinguist]

No, the foot-breaking did not involve the bass clarinet (dropping it on my foot probably would've broken the bass clarinet!), though it did happen just before a parade. I somehow managed to fall while walking across a nice, flat parking lot (this is something my friends will still ridicule me for) and twisted my foot and broke a bone. Pretty much wrecked the rest of that summer. :-)

And don't worry about not having known this; I don't think it's mentioned anywhere else in my journal at all; it happened a couple of years before I had one.

As for being good at bassoon ... well, I don't know, but I had a lot of fun with it, and still say it's my favorite thing I can play (except guitar). I think I'll have to write about my bassoon someday, though; it's too long to put here.

[ex-humanfema327.livejournal.com]

do! and pictures. The end.