500 WORDS, DAY 11: Waves That Carry Me Away

So, yesterday I mentioned that I’m excited to be working on a kind of “psychedelic ambient” album, the type of album I’ve been wanting to produce for a while now. I was saying that I’ve always been into everything trippy, and mentioned that it feels like there might be a connection between my fascination with all that is weird, and with my fondness of the random. I didn’t go into too much detail about that, but basically, it feels like I get into one thing for a while, not necessarily grow tired of it or put it to the side, but just get super interested in something else, which could be related to that first thing or could be completely unrelated, and just gravitate towards that second thing, and away from the previous activity, not because of a conscious decision but simply due to a lack of time. I usually don’t leave the first thing behind forever though, but instead gravitate towards it again at some point in the future. The times when I will fade in and out of each interest are never certain, and since I’ve been stoned for most of my life since a teenager, everything seems to flow seamlessly in a blurry haze, one interest bleeding into the next, one wave sweeping me up and taking me away, then deep into a certain ocean. Eventually I come back up from the depths of the water only to get carried away by the next wave without even noticing. If it were up to me, I would continue doing everything, keeping a perfect balance between all the activities I want to keep making progress in. The problem is that life doesn’t work like that. There just isn’t enough time to keep everything going at once, especially without sacrificing family time. For example, when it comes to music, I have a list of tutorials to watch for music production involving VSTs and FL Studio, as well as a separate list for music production on various pieces of hardware. Apart from that I have a playlist for learning music theory, and a playlist with videos all about mixing and mastering, including compression and everything else essential to music production. Currently I’m a bit past the halfway mark of a 10-hour compression course by Mastering.com. Anyway, I just think to myself, wouldn’t it be super cool to be able to live multiple lives at once? I mean, music isn’t even everything to me, despite how much I love it. There’s also so many books, philosophical and spiritual books, books about life in general, or even novels, that I wish I had the time to read, and the more you read the more you realize how little you know, and the hungrier you become for more knowledge, the more you add to your list for future reading. The more you ponder the more ideas about life that come up in your mind, more possibilities for your life and for the world. There are just too many options, too many possible ways of life, it’s hard to pick one and stick to it. I think this is really the root of my fascination with randomness. I am aware of the unlimited number of possibilities this life presents us with, and I am afraid of missing out on any of them, so I feel like I’d rather let fate decide, let the wind take me where it will, so to speak. It seems to me like such a poetic way of approaching life, a way to stay true to life, humble in the face of the great unknown, yet open to whatever it could bring our way. It’s beautiful, at least in theory, but the problem is if you never pick anything you get stuck in the middle, not quite here and not quite there, never succeeding at any specific thing, what one would call a jack of all trades but not quite, just almost.

If you have a few minutes I’d appreciate it if you listen to my song “Love & Happiness.” I wrote and recorded it and produced the soul-sampled rap beat on my MPC One. Hope you enjoy it!