accomplising goals is a scary thing is it?

It's a scary thing accomplishing long term goals. Well perhaps the problem is that I didn't set my goals high enough. ANd here I thought my goals were too high because that's what everyone else told me. Here I am, still unable to write music on the guitar. I feel no inclination to even pick it up. ANd why? Well I think it is because I achieved what I had wanted to achieve and there was nothing left to chase. My goal was to reach a level of technicality close to the great tech death bands. ANd I did that. I wrote some crazy ass songs. I also wrote a lot of simple ambient songs. That was my goal though. I didn't want to be a "song writer" or a "recording artist," I really just wanted to be damn good so people could pay some attention to me and I could feel good about something I put a lot of work in to. And it felt good...everytime I showed a song to a friend of mine, they all reacted similarly telling me how sick it was or how other-worldly my playing was. Yes it was, because that was my goal. I didn't have anything left to achieve after that. I am scared because I don't know what it is going to feel like if I just give it up completely. I still don't know if that is somethign I can do. I am learning to do things out of self-discipline again because I had lost some of that...and that can lead up to getting back into music. As Jay Cutler said, The heart of a champion is one that is never satisfied. The problem with music is that, I became satisfied. It is true. Is this what satisfaction feels like? If so, I don't think I want to ever be satisfied in my life again. I want to be happy. When I am satisfied that means I am stagnant. While everyone needs down time and rest, changing and doing things are what's fun in life. Otherwise there is no point in living a life passed existence.

SO where does this leave me? Well, I am very much considering climbing my way back up to the top with music. I just want to do a little more planning before going for it. Two things I "regret" when I was playing and practicing was that I didn't play out enough and I never had a good way to record myself.

I've also learned to not tire myself out with excess thinking. That being said, I will be more able to dance, lift, and write more than ever before. And as a matter of fact, this blog will be used to get all my excess thoughts out. ALmost like a form of meditation. But this is more of a cleansing

Wow, I need and want to do a lot of work

OK, so there are a lot of things I want to work on that I feel would be highly beneficial to me. SO many things. It almost overwhelms me, but I believe I can do it all. Reading my brother's blog makes me so inspired almost all the time. I see him now blogging about some of his flaws or weaknesses and it makes me want to address mine as well. I've done this a lot in the past, but I want to revisit them so I can actively fix them and make myself a better person because there are still many things I feel I am missing socially, intelligently, organizationally, emotionally, mentally etc etc.


Here is one thing that has been such a limiting factor to me...I am too quiet in social situations and I "never know what to say." I also have trouble creating humor. Ugh. Now that I am passed my socially anxiety, I can analyze my behavior much more clearly. When someone makes a joke to me, part of me wants to laugh, part of me wants to not react at all, and part of me wants to say something funny in return and the other part of me can't figure out what to say back. WHy is this so important? Because humor can be just as uniting as anything else. It is a fundamental that brings us together. I am tense a lot of the time. I mean that is how I've grown up. It is beyond what drinking or smoking could fix. People say oh just have a few and relax, but it doesn't work like that. That's what so many people don;t understand and that's what I wish I could tell people, but at the same time it would probably just make them more disinterested in me. However, talking about it could help lead to a solution. Having grown up so tense, how can I just flip a switch and be so relaxed? That is probably the first step to cultivating my sense of humor. I feel like stress messes everything up. When I am stressed I am not in the mood for being funny at all. Anyway, back to my behaviors. When someone comes with a joke or a humorous statement, I basically just reply passively. Yes that's it. I am always passive. That is my problem. Why am I always passive? Well a lot of it has to do with the way I grew up. From having had social anxiety I did not develop much confidence in myself. Then I am thrown into situations that require that confidence and some days I have it and some days I don't. I actually do have it because I have spent years trying to improve myself on different levels.

It's weird though, when people joke with me, there are a few with whom I can joke back and my words are not just thought of as stupid, but are actually funny. I need to make that a lot more frequent...but I don't know how. Is humor a skill you can work on? If so, how? I don;t know where to begin to teach myself to be funny and humorous; nor do I know someone who can teach me.


I am going to take this paragraph from my brother's blog "Sureness:

Where do people get it? Where does it come from? Is it really as good as it seems? Is there such a thing as too much?

Some people seem to have this sureness. This conviction and strength. I find it incredibly admirable. I even have it occasionally. Mostly when I play music or teach.

Most of the time though, I have doubt. I think it is one of my better qualities. I'm the sort of person who when challenged backs down to pause and think. I seem to be able to agree with polar opposite sides of an argument or at least to feel why those things are right. I don't believe in absolute morality, yet neither do I believe completely in relative morality."

I feel that very much applies to me as well and I couldn't have said it better.

I need to get out and do more

Something I can't just wrap my head around...

It's not about the technicality, it's about the music. Or is it about both? WTF, I have been struggling with this concept for a very very long time. I've read stuff about a lot of musicians who had played their instrument for years, became virtuoso etc, and then just made some of the simplest music they could. I want the best of everything, but its so damn hard to obtain. I wanna make the best music, but I also want to develop the best technique and technicalities. At the moment, I told myself I want to play in a doom metal band so that I would not have a NEED to practice guitar. Why don't I want to practice guitar? Becuase I have done it for so many years already and it's not as fun as it used to be. That seems to be the biggest reason, the fact that it isn't so much fun anymore. But part of me just can't let go of the skill.

I take great pride in knowing that my technique is far greater than many other people's and that my technique actually impresses me.

What does that say about me? I take pride in knowing that I am good. I take pride in having ability.

now, is this a limiting perspective? It may be. It may lead to me putting too much pressure on myself and then not getting done what needs to be done. Or it could do the exact opposite. Ok, enough of what it COULD do...what DOES it do? I am not sure.

May be that is just an old wya of thinking and now that I am changing, I am afraid of it. Perhaps there are things I'm still insecure about which is why I want to keep to that kind of thinking