pride, possibly in the name of love maybe

things that are a plus:

1) in the last week, i've dropped from 58 to 43 on the Burns Depression Checklist. So now, instead of being severely depressed, i'm evidently only MODERATELY depressed. i can only assume that this is a positive step of some sort.

on the other hand, if you look at my counter, i look like a damn alcoholic. granted, this is about 2 weeks' worth of drinking there, but there's easily at least 30 standard(?) empty bottles of beer there... from me... drinking by myself. i haven't done dishes in about a week, i have clean laundry chilling on my couch and my drums are kind of packed up all over my living room (as opposed to, say, my dining room, or family room... i have 3 rooms in my place, if you count the bathroom as one.)

it's a combination of things, to be honest. obviously, my last post dealt with a sort of realization - a fear, of sorts, of fully committing to anything, and the possible reasons behind that. what i think i might have left out is the effect that it's had on my creative process and my life, to some extent, in general.

musically, i think i have a lot of great ideas, but executing them to their full extent is evidently rather difficult for me. you see, i think "Highland Park" was something of a red herring for me - even as i was the one who wrote the songs, i had the advantage of having sort of "field-tested" them with a full band, as it was really supposed to be Nearfall's first album, so i at least had an idea of the arrangements and such. and frankly, some of how those songs turned out was because of how they ended up working when i was in Nearfall - the compromises i made on songs to make sure they would work for us ended up becoming habit. if nothing else, they had input from people who weren't inside of my head at all times (not that i am implying that there are people inside of my head at all times or at any times for that matter. in case you were wondering.)

and no, there wasn't an overarching "theme," if you will, for "Highland Park." it was basically a collection of songs that i had written and decided to release. i can claim a sort of musical story arc (like one of those ones we always used to use in middle and high school to chart a story's progression... the name escapes me at the moment) - i think there's a rise and fall of tension, kind of, on that album, or an attempt at it - and if nothing else, it serves as a unified collection of where and who i was in that time (late high school/early college?)

"A Preview of What Lies Behind Us," on the other hand, was deliberately an EP - i knew that there was no way i could tie any of it together. to some extent, i'm okay with that, but at the same time, i kind of feel like it was whatever i had that was just... "finished." and maybe there's something to be said for why certain songs were finished or why i was motivated to complete them as opposed to others, but you really can't claim any sort of raison d'etre that explains how all of the songs are connected... which is sort of why the release has the title it has - about half of the songs on there came from the time of Nearfall and just had never really been fleshed out, and the other half kind of show maybe what i'm capable of in general, so i guess it's a glimpse of the future and the past... you know?

i realize that for most people, this is relatively a small issue (this probably goes without saying... given that i am kind of the sole driving force behind my work. well, not true, but whatever. maybe the sole executive force. yeah. we'll go with that.) in fact, i'm pretty sure that i'm sounding like a pretentious "artist" as opposed to what i really kind of am... which is just a (to this point) relatively unsucessful multi-instrumental musician with a mediocre singing voice... who just happens to really care about this more than i think i can really explain.

at the moment, i've sort of lost my train of thought, but i've decided to put up some of my old writings from my freshman year at UNI... i know just getting this out on paper (MSnotepad?) sometimes helps more than i remember, and a certain webcomic i've been reading lately has inspired me to maybe not hold everything in as much. so we're gonna keep trying this.

a realization of a fear

small revelation:

i think i unconciously keep myself from really becoming a part of anything larger, or fully committing to anything more than just me. the catch to this, however, is that it only it serves to isolate me, to make me feel even more lonely at times than i already feel.

examples:

- when it comes to music that is not my own, in trying to work with other musicians, i find that i either a) refuse to branch out to anyone new at all or b) beg off or disappear after a few sessions. why? i suspect this has to do with the way that i left nearfall. all the energy and time i put into that band at that age, and then the frustration in realizing that it wasn't going to become what i wanted it to be, and the subsequent severing of ties with the rest of the band made me leary of working with others, of seeing my vision taken away, destroyed, my dreams stomped on and ruined right in front of me. to that end, even when it involves my own work and having complete control over it, my reluctance to trust others with my work keeps me from finding people to go out and play with - and thereby keeps me in the same defeated, but less vulnerable, position i find myself in. along the same lines, i find it hard to even go and jam or write with other people for much the same reason - why put work into something that will most likely never come to fruition or worse, be grotesquely distorted beyond what is enjoyable for me?

-my workplace (and by extension, my social circle). when i first moved to my current store, i assumed that it would be an easy transfer - unfortunately, it was not. not only did i not have a definite spot available for me, it would be six months before one would open up - and it would be a demotion. from this, it appeared that even within an organization i had been a part of for 2.5 years, there was nothing secure about my employment, and that the store i was leaving did not see fit to better assist me in my transition - essentially leaving me out to dry. (the facts are much more nuanced and better explain the issues, but here i am explaining the perceptions of events that have led to the way i now face things.) in any case, appearances being what they were, the store i transferred into at least had somewhat of an excuse - they didn't know me and had no one to really advocate on my behalf, therefore, why waste the time investing a stranger in a valuable position? my old store, on the other hand, seemed to have washed its hands of me as soon as i left - even if it wasn't entirely the case - and therefore, i evidently came to assume that my value as an employee only went so far. in one sense, this may have been a blessing in disguise - i came to find myself working hard to prove my value once i started working at the second location, eventually resulting in my promotion to department senior and my eventual transfer to the department that i am in now (where i am well-suited in terms of knowledge base and skills.)

the flip side of this, however, was that it took me a long time to feel comfortable integrating myself into the store's social scene, and given the demographic of the store's employee base, it stung even worse than it otherwise might have. for whatever reason, i kept to myself initially (especially given that the position i was in is generally undervalued among employees) and this didn't help make me very approachable - which basically spiraled into me feeling like the eternal outsider until recently (and even then, there is still a sense for me that i will never fully feel at home with the people that i work with.)

unfortunately, my workplace is more or less my social circle. i originally moved to this city to be with my girlfriend at the time, and as a result her friends were my "friends" (i use the term lightly because i essentially only associated with them while i was around her - they were not necessarily people i would have gone out of the way to befriend and pursue a relationship of any value with.) at the same time, i felt like i had left my "real" friends behind in my old city, so any pursuit of new friendships down here evidently smacked of a betrayal of sorts to me - therefore, i grew complacent with the situation i had. unfortunately, when she and i broke up, again, the ties i had were quickly severed, a situation all the more exacerbated by a rebound relationship that i became briefly involved in - in any case, i was essentially left stranded in a city where the main form of recreation was drinking, most friendships were already made, and most people my age were in their final year of school and not looking to build any sort of relationship of substance, given the transient nature of this town.

in short, i found myself lost, floating, cut off from what i at least "knew" (even if i didn't like what was there) and not finding the alternative (the people i worked with) to be a very attractive substitute. unfortunately, circumstances didn't serve to disprove what i already seemed to perceive about the newer group, but they were my only option.

still, however, what this really served to do was to make me more reserved - a part of the group to some extent, but still always an outsider, deliberately so, just to make sure that i couldn't be "abandoned" again.

-in general, as i look back through life, i can see this trend of making sure that i was always NOT "completely" part of something - a desire not to be pigeonholed, branded, easily identifiable - and yet at the same time, recognizing that it seems to have only brought me loneliness and despair. this same trend, i believe, has begun to affect me creatively - i find it hard to commit to any sort of creative work or begin it, because of the fact that it might fail and that my time will have been wasted... and yet i have overcome this on occasion, which only seems to make me think that the creative forces behind what i do must be stronger than i can even realize, to overcome what seems to be overarching paralysis throughout the rest of my life.

then, i must ask - where does this refusal to commit myself to anything - this thread of neutrality and complacency - where does it come from? why do i let this fear of just doing something, starting something, finishing something and moving on control my life?

.....