
My life is a bit sad.
Over the last three days, I really haven’t done all that much, and what I have done I wish that I could have done more.
Let me explain.
I was at work late on Friday night grinding through a series of slides for a critical business review next Wednesday. Now everybody was gone, but not me. I had the spreadsheets open. I had the slides crunching. I was comparing data. It got to be 10:30pm so fast it blew my mind, and I was so wired up by the time that I got home that I couldn’t sleep. When I am work, I give it my all. I have two speeds “all the way on” and “all the way off.” I know this about myself. I have done very well in my work because I am all the way on. If I wasn’t like this I would be all the way off, and I would not have made it half as far as I have in life.
However, the problem is that Saturday and Sunday come and I go off. After my week of being amped up on due dates and crisis’s, when the weekend come I collapse. And I do mean collapse. I am not good for much around the house as I surf the web and watch TV and do whatever I want. I am lazy, almost.
Why “almost lazy?” What is strange about me is that I don’t stop. Now, mind you, I don’t do what I really want to do on the weekends, but I do not stop (for the most part). I am actively engaging on something, usually on the web. This weekend it was a series of posts with Matt Petersen, who is a friend of my sister’s family.
Then, since I had today off, I went down to the piano to tap out a tune. No idea why. From this, I went upstairs and uncovered my recording equipment. I had a sort of cool riff, and I put together a short snippet of a song.
You can hear it here on Soundclick, but click on “A Riff On Light” on the selector page.
Now the problem with writing music is that it is really tough, and even this very short snip of music, which is in no complete, takes a lot of effort. The first issue is that I simply don’t record that often and when I set up my recording gear, I am unwinding a bunch of cables. Then the software never works right. I can’t get the sound that I want, and I don’t even write lyrics for it.
All I do is repeat “Bright Light, come inside of me now, and burn the gray away.”
I mean these lyrics are nothing but a useless chant.
Yet, even with this small bit of time and frustration, I hear a subtle tone in my own music that points to something else. Although others may not hear it, I hear the music of God inside of my own writing. I grieve in that I do not have the time to bring the music of God up to the level where others can hear it.
I saw 60 Minutes the other night where the “new kids” in the workforce after Gen-X is the Millennials. I am the first of the Gen-Xers in both my age and my personality. I was into the New Wave, Punk, and anti-establishment movements. However, as reported, there was much in the Gen-Xers that talked about hard work.
The new Millennials worry more about family and friends and less about their jobs. They work for self satisfaction. I work for my family and my art and theology are less important. I grind until there is little left for myself. If I had me in mind, I would be working on my music in earnest and creating full works of art and not slop of mediocrity. In many ways it is harder for me to do something like a riff of a song on a weekend like this because it reminds me of what “could be.”
I could be pursuing my music.
I could be writing my book on theology.
I could be teaching my children more.
However, mediocre I will be. Afterall, the bills must be paid. I must prepare for the future. The fate of the family is on my shoulders. I can choice to beg off of this responsibility or I can choose to face it head on. However, someday I can hope that I can bridge the gap.
The Levis retired when they were fifty. I am thinking that I will do the same.