Elijah's Work
Currently, I am sitting in my dining room, watching the snow hide trees and bury cars, and for the first time in a while, I am quiet. Basking in the silence that accompanies snowfall, I am silenced.
This thing is disorienting. This artist life.
I am incredibly lucky. I am seriously so freaking lucky that my full-time job is being a musician. I keep thinking about it, and the only word that becomes abundantly clear is grateful.
I am Grateful.
So freaking Grateful.
I wake up, make breakfast, and then go practice piano. After an hour or two of practice, I compose, I watch Ableton tutorials, I drink coffee, I work on my live looping rig. I am growing like crazy in all the places that I want to grow, and yet I still have days when I am incredibly sad.
I have days when I am overwhelmed by the insecurities of inadequacy, terrorized by thoughts that I’m lazy and making all the wrong decisions. It feels like there is this anxious urgency around being a musician that everything has to be right now or else NOTHING is ever going to happen, and what are you doing if you aren’t doing it ALL RIGHT NOW?! The truth is, I am not following the formula I’ve been told to follow; I am not looking for a label, or a touring life, or to perform every chance I get.
This artist thing... It’s a disorienting life. I have no boss I can be mad at. I have this insatiable desire to create. And I’m realizing that the whole “making it” thing is nonsense. I mean, what is “making it”? A hit song? A sold out concert? A crowd singing my lyrics back at me?
As I consider what I want, and why I create, I am shocked to realize that it is skewed towards an identity conversation. The “making it” thing is looking for self-worth, something that will finally prove I am worthy, lovable.
We are at a unique point in history in that we get to observe the “making it” identity crisis unfold in celebrity social media. We see people strive to achieve the influencer status and then watch meltdowns occur. I don’t mention this because I want to make fun of it. I say it because I am recognizing that could easily be me.
If my self-value and identity depend on some abstract idea of success and I don’t get it, or worse, I get it and then that thing is taken away… Who am I?
I don’t have some magic safeguard promising I won’t ever go down that path. the ego is tricky, and it does a good job of making us unaware of its influence. But right now, I am focusing on being present - grateful - right now, I’ll watch the snow hide trees and bury cars. Right now, I’ll be quiet.