by Paul Finley copyright 1999
We must often suffer for our passions. Of the beautiful moments that encompass all that you live for, in your art, there are hard realities at hand as well.
It can take alot to understand those of us who carry on with so little, and put up with so much, in order to keep pursuing our true passion. As time goes on it gets harder. You see your friends, and family move on with their lives. Getting married, buying a house and having families....all pinnacles in a lifetime. But there are some of us who may not have really changed since our teenage years. We've matured, of course, but our fundamental goals and routines are the same.
You get what you put yourself towards. Here's the catch: the level of "success" it brings has infinite variables. If you fully give yourself to being a full time musician, you can do it. Many days it will be just you and your instrument, with little food in the fridge and not knowing when the next paying gig is. But for many this a way of life. You push on because the music you play is that which makes you whole! You feel incomplete without it.
It happens when you are planning, after you've just played, when teaching that lesson, or writing that song; you know you've just LIVED! Because in those moments, that is when you come to life. Like the fireman who may not do anything for days: then suddenly for 2 hours he's one of the most important people in the world, to a group of people or even just one person. It's at those moments life says to you, "You're on. Now be who you are!" It may be onstage or one on one with a student. You're passing on the gifts you have been given to help enrich the world. The deeper you reach inside, the greater the understanding of why you need to write that song, play that instrument or teach that lesson. It is to add to the audience's life; to give glimpses of the human experience. We all need to learn from each other's lives in order to better live our own. The opportunity music gives us is that it is a mediator to the places inside ourselves that need comfort or to reaffirm beliefs that are already there. Music, when we and the composer/performer truly bare our soul, is to provoke enlightenment. It is strictly up to the individual if they choose to see the light.
It's the contact musicians with this power, whether they realize it or not, that they'll do whatever it takes to carry on through their personal struggles. Again, the responsibility with that power is an individual's choice: to use, abuse or ignore it.
A true love is a tough love, but you cannot lie to your passions.