Wednesday, April 2, 2008

not okay

i confess, i've been a TERRIBLE blogger.

turns out when you actually do your readings for class, it sucks up your fun superfluous internet time. i mean don't get me wrong, i still check all my online social networking sites a shameful number of times a day but blogs take time and thought and i don't have a whole lot of time or a whole lot of thought to spare these days.

i will expound albeit concisely [for me, anyhow] about the exciting things unfolding in my future. ladies and gentlemen, in the next two weeks i will be playing not one but TWO shows! bum-ba-da-BUMMMM!!! while i should be thrilled at this opportunity [somewhere deep down i am, i promise] i'm also terrified and i mean TERRIFIED. playing out is something that i know i've got to do and something i know i should have been doing but i don't know... it's SUPER DUPER scary. even more than a fear of failure, i have an INTENSE fear of mediocrity. i've been justifying my reluctance to play out by reasoning that i would rather play nothing than play something that's just okay. there are millions of okay songs out there by millions of okay writers sung my millions of okay singers -- i don't want to be one of them. i don't want to make boring music, i don't want to be a boring singer/songerwriter, i don't want to contribute to the dumbing down of culture in our society. not that i have these lofty aspirations of making super pretentious "high art" [whatever that means anymore] but i know that i want to do something real and something new -- a tall order in this day and age.

but i know that i've got to do SOMETHING first. even if that something isn't awesome or earth shattering... even if that something exposes me and my lack of sophistication... even if that means that someone will think i suck. i'm not gonna just land at greatness out of the simple desire to be awesome or out of a fear mediocrity. i'm gonna have to endure my own crap. i've got some growing to do.


...
[know what those are?]
baby steps.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

baby steps :D

a good friend of mine is always saying "you don't have to be great to start...but you have to start to be great."

this is only the beginning :)

Anonymous said...

like i always say, jess:
"Cantad al SEÑOR un cántico nuevo; cantad al SEÑOR, toda la tierra."

or for those who are not spanish-speaking:
"O make a new song to the Lord; let all the earth make melody to the Lord." psalm 96.10

like ali's quote from her friend... i agree, you just have to lift up the song(s) you have in you in faith.