So I began working on this blog a bit over a year ago now. I realize I’m an insanely late starter with the whole blog thing, one in how many these days? I was never much interested in blogs or blog culture and am usually the kind of person who takes some time to get involved with whatever the cool new mode of communication happens to be. Until spring 2010 in fact, I never thought I’d start a blog, and this project only really happened in the end out of some kind of basic necessity.
When I was a student, I spent some time running the graduate New Music group. I had a lot of amazing experiences in this role, and the process helped initiate my fire for producing. One of my responsibilities was arranging the weekly composition colloquia guests, most of which were local or in-house, though we had a decent budget for others further out as well. Once when I attempted to invite John Zorn, he instead turned the invitation around and let a bunch of us to come visit him in NYC. We took him up on his offer, subsequently engaging an awesome pilgrimage to meet the experimental music godfather. When we finally left after a few hours of unbelievable conversation, he said something to me that’s stuck ever since: that I might ultimately find more success changing the system by working outside of it. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t come to completely believe him for a number of years; for better or worse, I needed to see it for myself.
When I resigned from my last job, it wasn’t just the end of that job or, say, a budding formal career in New Music administration. Much more painfully, it was the effective end of a dream that I could be a part of true and significant progress in large US New Music ideas/systems by being a part of that system. One of the realizations that hurt most and that ultimately convinced me to leave was coming to truly understand how practically these visions and plans for ways that things could be improved, these things that were possible—that I was utterly naive in believing that the individuals with real power actually meant what they said when they agreed with me toward wanting to engage significant organizational advancement. Instead, I allowed my zeal to make me a target for use by powerful people who had no interest in real transformation, since one basic consequence of this change would be somewhat less power for those powerful individuals. So it goes, I see it, but it was the second time I faced this basic lesson and I decided that I don't have any place in my life for a third.
Nonetheless, the instinct that had ultimately led me there in the first place remained following my resignation, and in fact had ironically amplified as a result of what I’d seen: I still maintain a belief that things can truly be so much better, that better ideas well executed can indeed lead to significant improved change across the New Music landscape, and that real progress is possible if people with control are truly willing to do what's necessary. But that's the crux, and is in fact why it's so much easier for effective change to happen at the grassroots level. Anyway, progress is indeed taking place, everywhere, as creative musicians and producers are making new things happen in new ways—though at least regarding New Music in the US, it seems that they’re usually not the ones with the biggest pocketbooks or the legacies to protect (exceptions do however exist, to be fair!).
So to come back to the initial point, I left the job still with a million things on my mind, about New Music but also just about trying to actually live as a creative and curious individual in the world, and writing this blog felt like some good simple thing I could do to articulate all this mess in my head, little by little and piece by piece. And indeed, in many ways it has been an important part of finding my way back to some things I'd let others distract me from for a spell. So I posted on the blog religiously for about a year, barely missing a week—in part, just to make it real, but also because there usually feels like there's just so damn much to say. Why I haven't written in a while now is not really relevant, except to say that the blog had lately accrued some unnecessary rules from which I needed to extricate myself, and I have. When I started this, I didn’t really know what the project would become, and though I do have a clearer picture now, to be honest I still really don’t know where it’s headed and in fact I’m not really interested in dictating a path like that anyway—in honor of the life I had let myself become lost from and that I am now very gratefully living again, I am allowing it change as it needs to change, so long as progress is being made in some way that feels relevant to me.
Anyway, even though taking a little break from the blog was right and necessary for a number of reasons, I was feeling a bit guilty about not "maintaining my self directed responsibilities" until my old friend and secular shaman Peter Gilbert reminded me again about the importance of letting things slide. It’s true, there’s a place for letting things slide, just like there's a place for getting things done. And though I still work pretty aggressively and consistently, I think it’s one more point of good evidence regarding the positive shifts of my recent life that sometimes I can just let things like this slide, just pause certain tasks while life needs to go elsewhere. Part of that whole balance thing.
A final note: I can't believe how much has happened in a year, nor how wonderful and unexpected life can really be if you're invested in being a traveler. I am so grateful for the decisions we've made and the life we live now, and I believe more than ever that there's no other way than to truly follow your heart, no matter how insane it may appear, no matter how hard it may be.
Cheers my dear friends and thanks as always for reading.
