Wednesday 28th June, 2023
There was a time, when I could catch the wind, no matter it’s direction & in my tougher moments, I could ‘tack’ & move forward.
Sailing into the wind doesn’t work if a boat is aimed directly opposite the wind’s direction. The boat usually has to be at an angle of 40 degrees. Angling too sharply into the wind causes the forces on the boat to become unbalanced, & moves the boat sideways in the water…
I’ve oft used nautical metaphors in my life. I usually have a star to sail by, & I’m always gazing off into the horizon, racing to reach it. A music career is ‘captained’ by the artist, with the manager acting as a ‘first mate’ & they really do need to look after the ‘crew’. There is stormy weather… days without wind… & sometimes, oftentimes in fact, you must row your way into some kind of current to travel anywhere at all.
This gestalt begs many a question: “What is the metaphorical sexton we use to plot our course?”, “How does one deal with scurvy?”, & what I wanna talk about today…
“How does an artist sail into the wind..?”
To be clear, I’ve been terrible at this, & a lot of us are. When times are tough, we usually shut down, shy away, & grow bitter while we watch from the sidelines. In full honesty, since I released the album, I’ve really let my career go. (it kind of began before the album came out, but I’ll explain this later) What I mean by ‘let go’ is only in comparison to what I used to do. Pre-pandemic, & throughout most of the lockdowns, I was up in the morning, & excited to get working. I was writing, learning, planning, & reaching out to people to achieve anything & everything I wanted. Then, as my life began to unravel towards the end of 2022, I started to slip, gradually… then suddenly.
What’s brought all of this up now, is a recent move to my childhood home. Living in the attic I was once convinced was haunted… Being back to the geographical ‘square one’ has really brought up feelings of failure & an incurable urge to get out! A ‘rock bottom’ moment like this often drives us to go above & beyond what we’re used to, & that’s exactly what it’s done for me these past few days. The phenomenon of ‘working your way out of hell’ is a complicated one, it’s what you might call a ‘dark force’ in the artists toolkit. I even got a friend who has put themselves into awful life circumstances just as a way to motivate them to work more. The results of this gamble tend to be mixed… with my own experience of it, it can be great for getting things done, but it can also mess you up mentally. (a just sacrifice to some)
Looking back on a long stretch of ‘wasted’ time can be daunting. We have so many ways of qualifying wasted time. We say that we were ‘healing’, ‘learning’, ‘resting’, etc… all of which can be true, but that feeling of loss, that’s a legitimate feeling, & it’s one you should listen to & question. A lot of folk tend to blame capitalism’s insatiable growth & profit motive, alongside the protestant work ethic & hustle culture… these people aren’t completely wrong, the world we live in is DEMANDING, & that will lead us to guilt when we aren’t MAXIMISING our life both in terms of production, & experience.
The consolation that I’ve come to is this…
Not every mistake needs to be a lesson.
Every person you’ve met or been with, doesn’t have to add something to your life.
Regrets are not to be feared.
Everyone has time they have used ‘incorrectly’ by their own or others’ standards.
Self-care is ‘hard work’, not ‘no work’.
You need to forgive & punish yourself simultaneously… & what balance you strike is personal ideology.
Lists are a great way to avoid doing anything…
Okay okay, enough of this silliness. I’m in a good place these days. Using my discomfort & momentum to rebuild old habits is the grand consideration right now. It’s something I need to keep in mind constantly, when I’m coiled in my blankets, peeling myself off the floor is tough. Motivation is a tricky & subconscious thing… so I’m not trying to ‘hack’ my motivations, etc… but visualising the future I’m working for is a big one for me. When there’s a clear view of the horizon, & a cloudless night sky to sail by, it’s easy to pluck up the courage to try.
So when the skies & horizon are obscured by a stormy night, when the fog sets into your brain, how the hell does anyone keep going?
Not gonna lie, I don’t really know. It something I’m still trying to understand. Looking around at others just complicates things… & I’m gonna leave this question unanswered. I struggle with leaving things unanswered… as a type of defence, I come up with solutions, explanations, & theories about everything. Makes me very difficult to help. It them becomes very difficult for me to ask for help… so in the name of growth, I will tell you that I’ve no way out of that storm, & I’m at the mercy of the weather beyond my control.
Time to row forward, or tilt my sail, who knows at this stage…
Nathan
