Writing new songs.

I've been playing the drums since I was 17 or so, I've also always had a bunch of guitars and bass - a lot of other instruments mostly so any of my friends would have something to play on.  Recently I took up guitar and singing more seriously. I've had opportunity to play at several open mics in the area and even teamed up with some other musicians (as drummer) to play real gigs. So far all the songs I've learned to sing are covers, and the musicians around me seem annoyed with this fact.  Everyone else is making their own songs and they sound great but I think they're simpler than doing covers because playing other people's songs (I'm not getting paid for playing covers at open mics btw) expands musical ability. I've tried writing my own songs, the first one was a big hit but I had a lot of help and it was funny. The song I'm working to write now, I showed a friend a draft and sang it and he didn't really have anything good to say.  I wonder if there's some trick to this.

A post to post

If I had it in me to believe it was possible I would make a resolution to start posting to this blog everyday. Instead I will post more often.

Life

Like finding a seed on the ground and planting it, then excitedly getting ready for Orange juice. Fertilizing the soil to a perfect pH level for Oranges, buying a squeeze press to make fresh squeezed Orange Juice, planning a piece of your yard to host the tree, where it's conveniently located next to the door closest to the breakfast table...

...but the seed you've planted is for an apple tree, the soil pH was too high/low for apple tree's so the thing looks withered, the smell of rotting apples is overwhelming in the morning next to where you eat breakfast and the orange press you bought just takes up space.

Learn to wait, the tree will let you know what kind of tree it is when it's ready.

Hysteria

...I asked her about it, she said, "...that was manufactured to keep women in submission (in ancient times) to their husbands, strange behavior (described by this term) could've just as easily been caused by the fact women had to be in submission..."

I act silly all the time, when I do she calls me weird. If I didn't act silly, she probably wouldn't call me names. While I have no aspirations to subjugate anyone, there is (I feel) something silly afoot sometimes. Recognizing it is somehow not allowed though.

Is it social

A quote about risk and reward inspired a conversation about school, my opinion was that the measurement of success is very different in school than in life. During the conversation it was mentioned that when we're young school serves the purpose of conditioning us to act in a manner which is socially acceptable when we become adults. As an adult, I now face challenges like coming up with new disruptive ideas, ones that break apart social norms as a service. Is that something I was conditioned to do? How does one know what is outside the box, if one does not first know the box's dimensions?

A little bit of this, A little bit of that

It strikes me how similar things can be sometimes. Mark Twain said "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme" I would wholeheartedly agree. Ben Franklin came up with "A stitch in time saves nine." using an analogy based on socks to explain the importance of every day activities and keeping up with responsibilities. I find myself reluctant to accept that I'm repeating the same loop of time over and over like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, but sometimes I feel like it's true. There's a knee-jerk reaction that happens for me when I see the future, when it seems to be similar to the past. I want to defy the future I see, to make a change that will inspire me to make other changes. Now I'm a bit older, there's so much of my past that applies to situations, and I've already taken so many different routes I don't know which to take ever or I can't remember which of them if any panned out for me. When you're growing up decisions are easier, clearer somehow. Instant rewards can be expected, there's a plan. When you get through enough stuff, achieve your "long-term" goals, it's easy to feel knocked off your pedestal. Just know as you are at any time yourself, you're an infant version of the individual you will become and a shell of what you once were.

The growth of a nation

I had once thought it would be a bad idea to go to college, when I was just old enough to consider going. When I was very young it was still only an option, if you wanted to be a doctor or lawyer it seemed necessary but if you wanted to work a sales job or a general office function it was totally a waste of time. Now everyone has a degree, making it harder to compete for even trivial jobs. I myself took a little training back in the day just to gain a bit of knowledge and land a job, but it would be a stretch to call that college. It's getting to the point that an extra four years of schooling (at least) is mandatory for a good career. Or is it? If I don't have a degree, I might not be hired - but I can always start my own business and hire people with degrees to work for me. Is this what it means when they say "the A students work for the D students?". Starting a business is something like having a baby, as in, you can do so in America and it doesn't require any training or qualification, is that a bad thing? I'd say no. Some people can't hack it in rigid hierarchical structures, and often the only recourse is starting a structure of their own. So we've got a person who didn't do well in school, didn't learn much, didn't go to college but in the end they grow a huge company that can make financial contributions to election campaigns and afford to lobby for their own interests. Meanwhile the 'smart' college grads paying off their school loans seem to have little time for much else than doing what their bosses tell them. Sure they vote, as any smart person would, but they don't get to pay millions of dollars toward getting the right person elected, they don't have time during the day to ponder questions about where their business is going and how to make it better with legislation. They've spent their creative energy today on someone else living their dreams, and there's nothing wrong with that- it's why we pay so much to get an education right? Soon hopefully, we'll all have chips in our brain that interface with the cloud, our knowledge will be standardized and schools will no longer be necessary.  When that happens I wonder what the ratio of small business to big business will become?