It feels trite to make the topic of my first blog entry "reasons I'm starting to blog", but none of the alternatives seem authentic. Since I'm trying my best to not care what people think, I'll go ahead and tell you all about it.
I've always wanted to do this. I hadn't yet because I'd never believed anyone could possibly care enough about what I have to say to read my blog. Blog entries can be so long and take so long to read! "Who would spend all that time on me?" I thought. Well, I still have no reason to believe anyone will read my ramblings, but the difference now is that I''ll be okay if they don't. Just Writing it seems like enough now. Just a short time ago, the thought of spending a an evening writing a blog entry, only to awaken the next day to find no one read it would have been crushing. I was in a pretty bad way with other social media outlets, too. I would literally sit and wait for Facebook likes to come in after I posted. I'd get upset if I didn't get the number of likes I thought I deserved. It's pretty embarrassing to admit that, but at least it's over. I hope it 's over! It's probably mostly over.
This blog represents for me the reason I am excited to get out and start playing music again. In the past, the response I'd get from audiences served as a life or death measure of my self-worth. When people liked my stuff it was euphoric. When they didn't it was crushing. The pressure of the moments in between was a terrible strain. It's dangerous to live with your self-esteem controlled by the reaction of others to something your doing that is essentially art. Not even the "best" art is going to escape criticism and ridicule. It wasn't healthy. Though It was fantastically wonderful at times, it mostly hurt like hell. The bad moments always seemed to stick a lot longer. It made it really hard to enjoy interacting with fellow musicians in a healthy way, too. That's kind of sad to look back on.
I'm not perfect now. I don't have all the answers on how to navigate this world, but I do know I'm happy with myself. I'm happy with the actions I take and the choices I make, and I forgive myself when I make bad ones. Knowing this makes the thought of playing music and writing this blog very exciting. I can enjoy doing these things and leave it at that.
So here I go! I'm off to do my best to not care what people think. It's funny, I used to try my best to appear to not care what people think. I suspect I'll enjoy this new approach a bit more. I think I'll do it mostly with a smile.
