This will be one of my less intellectual, less artistic, less philosophical and more real entries. No beats, no metaphors and no unscrupulous third person references. This will be the truth. A self indulgent, frightening truth.
A couple of days ago I spoke to somebody about escapism. How books, films and shows are written as a vacation from everyday life - a stimulant for imagination and excitement (whether I believe some of these books, films and shows are any good is an entirely different story).
I don't watch a lot of television. If I really have absolutely nothing to do it will be my last resort ... if I have no other option. I read a lot of books, it's not that I'm a snobby reader, I am just very selective about which "world" I would want to get lost in for a couple of days.
For those who know anything about me, I appear to have a very rewarding, very exciting and very glamorous job. To an extent this is true, but not perhaps in the way most people would class the words rewarding, exciting and glamorous. Exciting because it is my job to always be on my toes, I am not physically allowed to switch off - my job is make or break at the end of everyday (whenever "the end" is) and I could wake up with a "disaster" (by my industries standards). Rewarding - yes, when it comes down to the bare grit; it is very rewarding to see sea's of people enraptured in their favorite music/band standing in front of them. Most people will not know I even exist, and I don't mind that at all. But this reward lasts no more than 90 minutes at a time. Glamorous. I meet a lot of famous people and I travel a lot; under no circumstances does this make my life glamorous - some people work with accountants; I work with musicians and there is nothing more to it. Writing and emending contracts, reading riders, sourcing production, negotiating prices, being on the phone at 3am and being patronized on a daily basis is not glamorous.
One thing I need to get straight is that I don't love what I do. I love music, but I am not what I do. What I do is a means to an end and does not dictate me as a person - and I hope - never will. It is a world of over spending, selfishness and an entire, huge, upsetting lack of perspective and morals. When you have sums of one million dollars thrown around you everyday for a performance of little more than an hour you tend to realise you live in an incredibly scewed version of reality. One that I, honestly, prefer to be isolated from.
In saying all of this. For my years and my experience I have been very successful in what I do. The perks of running your own company are immense. Freedom being the key factor.
But, with great responsibility comes great tolls.
As the years have rolled along, I have watched myself become more and more closed off from human intimacy. And what I mean by that is the ability to correctly express myself from the heart outward. My industry is cold and untrusting. Along with a fierce concoction of a series of unfortunate events in my personal/family life- I have been left in a strange and unfamiliar shell that refuses to be cracked. To most, relatively new people in my life: I am a confident, fast talking, career orientated, independent, sometimes cold, joker of a woman. I get what I want and I get it fast. I joke around instead of making a connection, I've got a strong back bone and I take most things on face value.
(For those of you that have known me for years, well you know the real story.)
Truth be told - yes, you could say I'm confident (most of the time) and you could say that I'm independent. But, that's as far as I'm willing to take the surface scratches; because the rest couldn't be further from the truth.
I am very passionate about a lot of things, you could say I have a lot of interests. Reading, writing, cooking, various different kinds of exercise, music (playing, writing and listening), a lust for endless travel, animal welfare, charity, painting, extreme sports and adventure. The list goes on. These are the things I will always make time for, because I require constant mental and physical stimulation and because of my job am lucky to be able to do so. There are things that I have lost as well. People is one of them. I meet people everyday, I work with people; it's fleeting and it is false. It's a moment in time and then they are gone. Because of my responsibility and dedication to these chronicles of fleeting moments - I have lost something very important to me. My ability to commit. To commit to being there for the people who are important to me; or at least, not as much as I feel I should be. Even more so, my ability to build depth with new people. My world is crowded; but incredibly solitary.
But all of this is nothing with out the core instinct that drives you to want to be passionate.
I have already mentioned the coldness of what I face every day and how it has shaped my outward persona. The skewed world I live in is lonely for the heart and the mind. I cannot let these things interfere with my work and as a result, they find it very hard to surface in new circumstances. I find myself cracking jokes when I want to be serious; saying things that I don't mean and sometimes completely locking up when I want to express something real and meaningful. My independent, no BS lifestyle with a stainless steel shield has turned me into an emotional coward.
What is success and money if it has driven you to loose the serendipity of some of the most simple, most rewarding pleasures in life? Or rather, the fear to have (or feel like you deserve) those things. I can't blame my work entirely - as I previously stated my personal and family life has taken some brutal hits for most of my adult life and I'm sure to some extent that has further hindered my armored heart and censored brain.
This will not be eloquently put - but I am mush on the inside, complete mush - beneath the hard exterior is someone who will always prefer to put others first, who likes nothing more than to make someone smile, who gets a kick out of helping those less fortunate, who takes great pride in making the people she cares about happy, who loves love - in all it's different forms. I have little to no interest in money. I know this is easier to say than to bring into fruition because currently I have it and it does fund most of my activities as well as find it's way into charity - but money cannot buy happiness; as big a cliche as it is.
Growing up, materialistically; I was lucky. Both my parents were independently successful to an extent and provided for both my older brother and I. I guess you could say it's easy for me to make rash statements about money because I've always had it; yes, that's true, I can make rash statements about money because I've always had it. It's not that I wasn't happy; but you are taught from an early age that peoples hearts can be bought when you have money. They can't and they won't. I won't go into the sordid details of my family life or it's financial emotional messiness. But I will say one thing; it hurt more when I lost a family members love, as oppose to one half of my families financial fortune.
I've been to more than a few poverty stricken countries and spent a lot of time with the people affected by poor economies and corrupt political strife. I can safely say that they were some of the most hospitable, happy and genuine people I have ever met. I know you've heard this all before, but that does not make it any less true.
Having told you all of this, having mildly exposed my internal mind map (though not nearly surfaced). I realise I am a walking contradiction; as I work in one of the most greedy, loveless, value deprived industries to exist in this day and age. This is not me. It's a job. I am not looking for your pitty. I am just doing my best to open up. You can say I've lived an interesting life - but nothing will be more rewarding than the peace of inner and outer warmth and finding the happy medium to allow myself, my real self to surface. To express myself without fear and to live a meaningful life.
A life is not a career, A life is not the last point on the checklist of "life achievements". It's everything, brought together, in harmony. It may not be perfect, but so long as you are emotionally and mentally satisfied - if that's even possible.. then you will never need to escape again.
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