This is what I was thinking last night as I was nursing Anise back to sleep for the fourth time in a 2 hour period: not only am I a full time mom, but I do also have somewhat of a career going, and that if I were anybody else, pulling off concerts without practicing would be next to impossible, and I don't get any credit for it.
Credit? From whom? Suppose I did: what difference would it make to my every day life? Would I feel better about myself? Am I performing just to boost my ego? Partially. I have been touring around the city for this government-funded program that helps bring classical music to the suburbs. Some concerts have had an ok audience, others had 10 people who clapped between movements. That is ok, it is still nice to perform, all I need is to touch 1 person in the audience and my work is done. But Sunday we had a concert in the heart of the city. It was a small hall that only holds 150 people but it was full. Full of regular classical music goers, full of a hardcore audience that would rather listen to live music than be outside Sunday afternoon on a beautiful fall day. We played really well. As I played I was thinking about how much I really do enjoy performing, and that I was pleased that the enjoyment was coming back (since Anise was born I have been enjoying it much less). We all felt nervous, and we all agreed afterwards on how rewarding it is to play for an appreciative audience. But wait a minute, that is not how it should be. One should not judge an audience, and their knowledge of music does not affect their enjoyment nor should it affect how we play.
I think as a performer we seek a thrill and the higher the risk the greater the thrill. Maybe there is an addictive quality to the adrenaline, similar to other thrill seeking activities, and the more we feel threatened and judged, the more we feel exposed, and the greater the risk.
This brings me back to validation. I guess part of who I am as a performer needs validation, maybe that is why I chose to perform. But I don't believe that is a necessary component for performing. I think it is a negative by-product. Or maybe I can blame my parents. Maybe I wasn't "seen" enough as a child and now I am constantly struggling to be seen. Either way I can go around in circles inside my head.
The thought process ends with "what do I really want?". Do I want recognition? A pat on the back? Do I want to be famous, recognized on the streets? Recognition from my peers? I don't know. If I had planned this I would say that the career/home balance was perfect. But it is not. I can't articulate why. I feel like I have reached a dead end and I only have half the desire and energy I would need to continue to get it going. What I want is a break, time off from thinking or worrying about career. I want to focus solely on child raising. I am too tired, and not in the right mental place to take the ups and downs that come with my career. I do not have the strength to swim against the current, nor the strength to ride the disappointment and push through anyway. I don't have the energy to shrug off competition and rise above the politics, and I cannot play the game. I don't have space in my head for ideas and programs, or strategies. I only have space for poo consistencies, sleep, games and food!
Ok, gotta go print programs...
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Now you work. Now you go home. Now you print programs. Now you wipe poo. Is there really a choice in front of you, or is all the this and that just in your head?
ReplyDeleteJust asking, because when your boss asks you to make a choice, then you need to make one. Until then, just take care of what is in front of you.
We all need/want applause. And we also have to handle life without it. Trust me, I know!
Leo is almost four and I still feel this at times. there are periods where I love my work and it all seems to mesh well together and then periods where I'm exhausted and wonder why I'm even trying to do so much. And the sleep deprivation of babyhood does not help to calm the mind. :)
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I have found that has helped is to just do one thing at a time. When I'm working I let myself work. when I'm with leo, I am not working but with him. And some times "it" all gets done and sometimes it doesn't. But just one thing at time and in the moment, the only thing.
Hang in there.
I empathize. As you've read, I am also questioning where I am in life. A good day or some praise and I think, "I *DO* like my work". But it doesn't inspire me. Why not? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteKaren said: "Is there really a choice in front of you, or is all the this and that just in your head?"
I guess all we can do is pay attention to our thoughts and actions, and make the incremental changes allowed when incremental choices are put in front of us.
Written by one who has not yet figured out how to do that.
Karen - it is part in my head, but I am my own boss (and that is the worst boss to have). So I have decisions to make, I either take action or I don't, and if I don't I don't have a career...But you are right partially, I can just do the tasks at hand, one by one.
ReplyDeleteWe all know how to do this, and it is soooo simple, so why is it sometimes so hard?
It is hard because we are too smart. We get ahead of ourselves. It is called "the foregone conclusion." In our heads, we're always leaping and dancing to a foregone conclusion in the effort to minimize uncertainty (which is verrry uncomfortable.) But in reality, there is no foregone conclusion. There just is what is in front of you.
ReplyDeleteI am my own boss too. Which means that I have failed miserably, bombed totally, and walked out of my job 66 million times today.
PS. This isn't something that one concludes through reasoning. This is something that can only be experienced in meditation practice, specifically my experience with koans. Sorry to say that many people can talk this talk, but few will walk it. And doing the practice is the only way to gain the clarity to enhance your life. It works because it quiets the mind that is trying to draw so many foregone conclusions.
See how you say, "If I don't, I don't have a career."? Well, the entire career isn't dashed because you didn't do something today, this week, this month. Your career is literally in your hands, not in your head. Not doing something now is not doing something now. You can do something another time. You just don't know what that will be right now.
You just don't know.
YIKES time to pick up G from Girl Scouts!!!!
Thanks Karen, you are so right. My head keeps saying "but" but then there is no but... I will meditate this weekend, at one point I just have to start, seems like that is the hardest part.
ReplyDeleteSo well said, Karen. Although I have a boss other than myself, I think I am much harder on myself than she is. And uncertainty is SO hard to accept sometimes.
ReplyDeleteHey Mika,
ReplyDeleteI tagged you for a writing prompt over at my blog.
Feel free to say no or join in!
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