pushing through (to the other side)

I’m approaching my 44th birthday (!), and I’m finding that a lot of my friends both a bit older and a bit younger than I are all struggling (for the most part) with finding a renewed sense of meaning in their work as musicians, artists, and human beings. I’m no exception. But I’m finding solace in the fact that there are some things that one can do as a musician or artist that do make the world better. Not just in performing great music with conviction, but by simply putting the utmost care and urgency into one’s craft. There are countless examples that one sees every single day of people who are supposedly very good at what they do making stupid mistakes that would have been avoided by paying careful attention to the art and craft of what their job entails. Newscasters that don’t know how to extemporize in grammatically correct English. Bloggers who can’t spell. Editors of major blogs who cannot spell. Reporters who are sloppy with the facts. There’s a caring deficit in America, and I’m not talking about caring for one another (though that, too, may be the case). I’m talking about caring about what one does – whether as a professional or as a hobbyist, as a vocation or an avocation – and taking the care given to that relatively insular set of skills and letting it cascade throughout the rest of one’s life. In my life as a musician, I have been taught to never play without thinking, and also to never play without feeling. In my life as a writer, I have been taught to do likewise, and when I do so the results never fail to be at least above average. My goal for the years going forward is to make sure that I observe these two basic rules with steadfast determination, and unalloyed joy. Life is going to get interesting!