Wednesday 12th April, 2023

Can we ever wipe the slate clean?

I know that a whole bunch of us would love to start from a neutral place… no existing commitments, no looming deadlines, no plates to keep spinning… I’m besieged by this feeling consistently. Life gets so complicated so quickly, you quickly lose sight of your through path, & the overwhelm begins to settle into your weakening heart. With a head full of thoughts, considerations, ideas… your to-do list rolling to the floor… & a future you‘d better be building towards… it’s no wonder that I meet both artists & everyday folk who year for a hard reset. There’s a school of thought based around the yearning for apocalypse stories stemming from a cross cultural overwhelm with the complexity of our modern world. Ideas like tiny homes or minimalism, these concepts are SOOOOO attractive to me, because it feels like my life would be that easier to manage. & those prominent names at the head of those movements sell it to us like that. No wonder I wanna throw away all my stuff constantly. (I’m selling an electric piano btw if you’re lookin)

Let’s focus for a moment. Reaching back into my life, things weren’t always like this. There was a time where a project & direction was ALL I craved… whereas now I have too many projects & directions. So somethings changed since then. But what?

If you’re in your early 20’s, you might have no idea what to do. Back then, I had so much energy, time, & focus… but there was nowhere to place it. My situation isn’t exactly normal of course… I had my initial dream derailed because of my injury. But I remember those around me with the same feeling, & I see it in a bunch of the 20 somethings I’m in college with. Back then, I forced myself into whatever I could. I hadn’t the experience to organise a show or anything like that. I was still kinda shy.

I remember so clearly, the first time I organised a proper event. Myself, Sean Farrell, & Robert O’Sullivan (the initial seeds of my old Arts Collective), we wanted to run an art exhibition in Swords. Rob, the most senior of us, just picked up the phone, called a local venue, & booked a date in one of their rooms. THAT step was something Sean & I could never do! But it was that simple, the event worked brilliantly, & I’ve been running events & gigs ever since.

The point of this lil’ aside is to give a bit of advice for anyone looking for something to do & not sure what to be a part of… You’re probably scared of growing, of taking the steps you need to do things in the wider world. A venue like that represented the ‘professional world’. Considering who I thought I was, they were ‘beyond’ me. They were ‘adults’ doing ‘adult things’. I didn’t feel worthy to bother them. (but remember, when someone young reaches out… it’s so rare that people will respond so well) So if you can muster up the courage, reach out to someone or somewhere that seems impossible.

Okay, enough sidebars… let’s tackle the question!

Can we ever wipe the slate clean?

If you’re familiar with me… then you’ll know what’s coming next. Because of COURSE there’s a more important question here.

Do we actually want to wipe the slate clean?

Hypothetically, lets say I wipe the slate clean from right now. (it’s 1.40pm right now) What would that look like?

Well, I’d give up the gig I want to perform tonight, the radio interview tomorrow morning, the headline show next weekend, a film screening in June, & a really nice performance in July. It would mean that I’d stop writing & producing songs for album number 2 & patreon. I’d also stop filming for patreon, & I wouldn’t finish this very entry. I would also stop going to college. Oh yeah, & I’d cancel the rehearsal I have this Friday (& the quick audition before it). Finally, I’d stop showing up to this cafe on Wednesdays.

These are just the immediate obligations that I’d have to / get to stop doing. What does that mean though?

What would I lose if I was to wipe my slate clean?

I’d lose my chance to perform! Which I absolutely love to do… I’m more comfortable on stage than I am in person. So many wonderful & creative folks would disappear from my life, without the regular meetings & rehearsals tying us all together, so many of those relationships would atrophy. I’m sure I’d lose a bunch of patrons, & a lot of fans would just forget about me. Most importantly of all, I’d lose my current reason to wake up in the morning. I don’t know how healthy it is, but music is my means to a happy & stable life.

At the end of the day… while I want the feeling of clarity, the cost of clarity is too great. What you need to sacrifice might not be much, but starting from scratch just kicks the can down the road. If you want to do anything, then clarity needs to be figured out along the way. There is good news for all of you messy minds… you can still ‘refresh’ your career.

This is why a lot of creatives use projects & campaigns as a frameworks to work with. Projects & campaigns have definite endings. Then you are free to start a new project, a new campaign. For me, I’m coming to the end of my ‘Start of Something Blue’ project. There’s a few things left to be paid off, & I still need to promote the thing a bit more… but generally speaking, the first album is done. For ‘Nathan Mac’, live music is next on the agenda… while I write & prepare album number 2.

Gorillaz have this interesting concept of ‘Phases’. They organise a certain stretch of their project into chunks that are reflected in the art style & overall mood of what they make. This could mean two albums & a tour. It could be 1 album & 3 tours… etc, etc… Basically, if you can contain your artwork into phases, chapters, or cycles, it can give you a clean direction for your focus. Inbetween these chapters, you can redefine & restructure your relationship with the constants of being an artist (aka: your social media, your patreon, your live show, etc…)

So I’m coming up to this transition in cycle, which I’m gonna embody in the colour scheme I put out there & some of the creative choices I make. Pink seems to be the colour of my next cycle, with a bigger focus on my Corde Lisse journey… which is a dream I’ve held since I was 16. Finally I’m finding a way to take to the sky as a rope artist… & music has allowed me to do it, my patrons are allowing me to do it.

Musically, I’m still not sure how we’re going to sound for this next cycle. We’ve only got three examples of what’s to come, & there’s little in the way of threading them together… but I’m considering getting the Patrons involved on the direction we take. (but that’s something I need to think about & consult them with)

To sum all of this up: the TLDR is…

The urge to start again is a sign of things getting too chaotic. Why it’s chaotic is usually because we don’t start out with the systems & structures needed to organise our careers. So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a breath, a pen, some paper… see what ongoing commitments you have & what commitments you can stop making. Then look at your current chapter, what stage of that chapter you’re in, & when this chapter will end. Externalise the focus of your chapter into the work/songs you’re making/releasing. What this looks like is:

Chapter: Start of Something Blue

Focus: 12 songs of the album & short circus film (Learning Curve)

Stage: Promotion, performance, & Screening

End: A headline show in Winter 2023

Okay, I’ve laboured the point, & dragged you through another week of elongated learning… so I’ll leave it there.

I hope this has helped a little bit, & I hope to see you tonight (if you’re around my show in the Grand Social)

If you’re not there tonight… you BETTER be there for my show on April 23rd in the Cellar (check it out here)

Okay, baii, love you, etc, etc…

Nathan