Tag: focus

attentive

In my artistic life – not that I segregate my life, but certain things require a singular focus and art is one of those things – my band and I are embarking on another recording project.

To date, we’ve released 3 full length albums and essentially 3 EPs, and I’ve essentially lost count of the ‘sessions’ we’ve done because (a) there’s been a lot of them, and (b) my memory is not great most of the time and these things tend to run together, especially when it’s been the same 3 guys, and pretty much historically has happened in the same studio. We’ve also done a bonkers amount of rehearsal recordings.

Sometime next year, we’ll take our artistry and duplicate it a whole bunch of times and turn it into a product to be bought & sold. It’ll become a commodity that people can have an opinion on, and they’ll determine if it holds up to our other albums, and at some point someone will say they liked our “old stuff” better, which will add a linear element to all of this, thereby making us feel old or something.

But for now, we make art. We set up microphones and baffles and headphone mixes and we flush out chord progressions and ramblings and churn them into songs. There will be pounding drums and loud guitar amplifiers and we’ll allow our imaginations to take us into strange places. We’ll weave together poetry and bent strings and interesting rhythms and low frequencies and our dreams will stretch our further than our shadows.

Working a job in between recording sessions is brutal, but we’ll do it because it’s the part of the process we can’t do without just yet. The transition from the top of our creative mindframe to the of an exhausted and underslept worker and back again is so painfully humbling, yet necessary.

Months later, a critic will refer to our efforts as “fairly country” or “chaotic” and if we’re lucky, both of those terms in the same sentence – but that’s in the future, and we don’t live in the future, we live in the now, and now is the time for art. Now is the time when we redefine and reframe the way we’re perceived by the world, designing a work that will give us another shot at notoriety. We fully believe it will propel us further, but how much further is not yet determined.

I have to focus on the art right now, though imagining a future in which this artist work already exists is such a beautiful distraction.
Now is the time for focus.
Now is the time to be attentive.
Now is the time for art – while completely disregarding the future possibilities.

We can’t create art for the future, this is a snapshot of the present.

The future will take care of itself.

The future happens anyway.

your own advice

“To live a full life is to be immersed in these joy-bringing and purpose-driven activities without the distractions I regularly supply myself with. I’m a creator and I need to be immersed in creativity in order to really be fruitful.”

I think a lot about a lot.

I genuinely put a good effort into these weekly posts and I’m pretty proud of the consistency that’s been maintained here. I give a lot of guidance by way of personal revelation but I recently blew my own mind as I was once again obsessing about weight-loss, calories, and macronutrients when Lu; my favorite person to receive earth-shaking revelations from, fed me some of my own rhetoric.

Her exact words don’t come to mind as I craft this, but suffice it to say that it’s word-for-word written in the back pages of this blog. It pertains to my fixation on living in the moment, thereby being happy where I am (as opposed to living in the past, or thinking too far into the future).

I spend a lot of time thinking about fitness. Saying that I spend more time thinking about working out than I do actually working out is an easy statement to make. The same can be said about my diet – I think about food for WAY more time than I do actually eating; and although these are great and important things, the truth of the matter is that these are distractions.

I plan my meals. I plan my workouts. There’s really nothing to think about – but that doesn’t seem to stop me from thinking about them. Really, when I’m doing anything, I should be focused on what’s happening in that moment. I need to be more present with the people around me, and with the other things that enrich my life, such as writing and performing music… working on my car… walking my dog…

These are the things that make me rich. I live a lifestyle that sounds like a dream to most people but it is that way on purpose. I live like a successful person, so I am one. That might sound like it’s too simple to be true but it’s really is that easy.

To live a full life is to be immersed in these joy-bringing and purpose-driven activities without the distractions I regularly supply myself with. I’m a creator and I need to be immersed in creativity in order to really be fruitful.

I believe they call this type of action “focus“

All that said… the start to he week was challenging. The drop in temperatures have made everything – particularly transportation, take longer than expected. I’m also contending with a different work schedule that involves longer days on account of the amount of traveling I’m anticipating doing this year for music. I also had a banger of a show on the weekend that took some time to recover and reflect.

I’ll preface this by saying I don’t intend to come across as complaining. Really I’m attempting to just be real about things.

All that to say – I didn’t swim on Monday as planned, and Tuesday‘s 75-minute bike ride and chest/biceps workout was pretty taxing as well.
Wednesday remains a rest day and I was thankful for it, meaning that Thursday‘s 30-minute run & 10-minute stair climb were especially therapeutic. Now… Friday‘s session had to change. 45 minutes on the bike and a back/triceps workout are too much for my morning now that my work schedule has changed. This week I’ve resolved to do my back/triceps workout first, and then I’d intended to round out my gym time with the rowing machine, which is an endurance machine I enjoy but have not spent much time with lately. I spent zero minutes on the rowing machine, but I have a plan to rectify this for next week.
Saturday is a bike/run combo that I may or may not being doing at the precise moment this gets posted (technology is wild). This week it’s 45 minutes on the bike and a 30 minute run.

My day job is funny. My schedule is whatever I want it to be (within reason). I need to maintain an average number of hours logged to compensate for time taken to play music, which is not because I need the money but because my job requires a certain amount of attention in order to be done properly. Since I can’t handle staying later than my current 6pm end time, I go in an hour early every day I’m scheduled… which cuts into gym time. I’m unsure of how I’ll be able to maintain this over the year but I have to try.

I do need this job.

So this is my solution for now, and should get me through the winter. Springtime will bring it’s own training challenges, I’m sure – but at least I shouldn’t have to contend with the weather in such an aggressive manor.

So if my biggest issue is that I don’t have enough spare time to physically devastate myself a couple o’ days per week… well, I’m doing ok.