#i’d be making more so i could afford to rent somewhere. renting in south jersey is fucking insane rn and i wouldn’t be able to afford it..

[lesbiacnh]

it’s supposed to snow and be gross all day tomorrow but i wanna go to the gym and thrift and go for a walk😭 i have a little bit of school work to catch up on and i wanna revise my notes for a test that’s coming up at the end of the month. but i wanna go outside first omg

#text #my sister bought a folding treadmill and i wanna see if she’ll let me use it if it’s too gross to go out tomorrow #but fr i haven’t been OUT of my house (aside from work) in almost a month. and im feeling it #if i get certified after this class. i could work remotely. and i WANT to but i also can’t be here all day #i’d be making more so i could afford to rent somewhere. renting in south jersey is fucking insane rn and i wouldn’t be able to afford it.. #i don’t wanna necessarily move FAR away from home but i can’t afford anything at all in nj. and i don’t rly wanna live in philly #so i’ve been looking around in pa + delaware but if im moving kinda far away why not just move a couple states away where its a little less #expensive 😭 #and ik once i move out ill want to try taking dating a little more seriously #the most realistic future: i wfh and continue to pay off student loans before moving out. and i feel insane and i have no privacy #and my anxiety doesn’t get that much better bc my house is chaotic + i don’t LEAVE for work and i don’t go out #my parents aren’t like. expecting me to move out anytime soon but i can’t stand living with three dogs. it’s so overwhelming all the time #i should save my money and not move out. but omg

[the-still-small-voice]

Permission to Create

There is an epidemic taking place. I’ll limit my judgement to American culture, since it’s the one I grew up in. I’m aware there are exceptions to the rule, but the toxicity seems to begin at the root. Not only did I grow up in America, but in the great and restless state of New Jersey, which often epitomizes the very problem I’m here to address: Creatives feel they are no longer “allowed” to create.

I started singing and performing for family members when I was three years old. I dedicated the foot of our family staircase as my stage. It was the same staircase where I first faced mortality. My mother sat me down at two years old to tell me about the death of a family member. It’s a moment I still remember despite being so young, and it was a peculiar foreshadowing of my later inclination to turn heartache into song.

Around ten, I began writing in the front yard of our suburban house, complete with white-picket fence. I had no instrument other than my voice and no concept of the “right way” to write a song, but I loved making lines rhyme over melody, and that was enough.

One night, while asleep at thirteen, I had a defining dream that I could play guitar fluidly. I was sitting in the entryway of my childhood church and people were coming from opposite directions - the outside doors and the sanctuary doors - to sit around me on the floor and listen. I woke up and told my parents. It inspired my dad to buy me my first guitar, and despite all previous attempts to play, this time it stuck. I spent hours in my bedroom learning songs and writing my own. I had no teacher - I just learned whatever I needed to learn for the next thing I was trying to do. Then, naturally, I recorded videos of the songs and sent them to whichever boy I happened to be interested in.

In my mind, there was never another option for what I’d do with my life. I tried exploring the music realm for something worthy of a college major, but I had no interest in teaching. I didn’t know how to locate a four-year college with a great recording program, and thank God, because otherwise, I’d be in-debt for an education I could’ve gotten on YouTube before proving myself someone’s worthy unpaid intern.

I love education. I love learning and reading about all topics (minus math). I won’t sit here and pretend I don’t care what people think, but when it comes to maintaining the status-quo, I’ve always erred on the side of rebellion (sometimes to my detriment, though often to my benefit). I never saw the logic in paying $20,000 - $40,000 per year for an education that wasn’t even streamlined in the direction I hoped to go (rock-stardom) in order to satisfy my high-school guidance counselor.

(Side-note: I swear to God, if Belmont University offered a “Rockstar 101” class, they could probably afford to purchase the rest of Nashville within the first year.)

So there I was, left with no formula, in a section of the country that isn’t exactly defined by it’s creative endeavors once you remove the majestic works of Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi. I was incredibly lucky to have parents who supported me both in music and in finances, but they also wanted me to learn how to function in everyday life. This resulted in their emphasizing what I considered to be petty nuisances; things such as: budgeting, household chores, and holding down a day-job.

My brain was so caught up in the philosophical (and episodes of Laguna Beach), that I struggled with the idea of simple day-to-day responsibilities (still do). I saw my parents’ attempts to teach me the benefits of discipline as nagging, and it paralyzed me. I assumed I must have been devastating them with my irresponsibility. Really, they wanted to cultivate my potential.

I didn’t have any notion for how fiscal responsibility or time management could affect my creative life. I was seventeen! I was trying to write sad songs and smoke cigarettes to fit in (and not fit in). I didn’t care about having money for the mere sake of having it, which seemed to be what so many people around me were doing - hoarding their paychecks to feel the illusion of safety that a number on a bank statement could bring. I wanted to play music and see the world. I didn’t have the mental capacity, since the human brain isn’t even fully developed until somewhere around twenty-five, to correlate working a job with pursuing my art. I didn’t contemplate the fact that maybe I’d want to build a home studio one day or buy a house in a city with a booming market so I could save on rent, work less, and write more. If I’m being honest, I still have a really hard time staying motivated, but I’ve learned a few tricks along the way. 

Things like:

1. A Positive Environment Changes Everything.

In Nashville, there’s no end to the misery of the stifled artist. The food industry is one of the best places to work if you’re a touring musician. You have plenty of co-workers to cover shifts, and at some restaurants, six months of reliable service is enough to deify you (or at least grant you the ability to ask for favors), but they can also be a real soul-sucker. Aside from grown men pitching fits over untimely refills on their Diet Cokes, I can recall a co-worker whose hours were triple my own. He was working to pay off loans from the aforementioned university, and now he didn’t even have time to make the music he’d spent $200,000 to study.

As much as I sympathize with the over-worked creative, submersing yourself in an environment of people who’ve had their dreams crushed can be toxic to your own. They feel they’re no longer permitted to pursue what they once loved because the so-called “real world” has hit them like a brick to the face. If you’re not careful, you’ll soon find yourself commiserating over one-too-many beers and accepting artichoke dip as the extent of your life’s calling.

You are an artist. That means you are intuitive. If you walk into a job interview and everyone in the building is trudging around grimacing and muttering complaints about their existence, do yourself a favor and find a different place to work. Creativity is energy, and what you spend it on matters.

2. Your Time is Valuable.

I’m twenty-eight years old with over fifteen years of childcare experience. I’m CPR certified and trained in First Aid, yet I still have a hard time asking for more than $12 an hour to keep people’s children from sticking their fingers into electrical sockets. Meanwhile, the average cocktail costs $12 and takes about fifteen minutes to disappear. I’m afraid of “offending” someone, even subtly, by stating my own worth, and THAT, my friends, is half the reason why the music industry has gone to shit, in my humble opinion.

Thankfully, artists are resilient. We find uncanny ways to support ourselves in order to keep creating, even if it involves borderline pleading with our friends to pre-order an album or trading gear on craigslist to make ends meet. Then, after all the effort, we have the privilege of listening to our extended family members complain about how we’re “always asking for something on ‘The Facebook’.”

The South lends itself to a sense of community, but in the region where I grew up, asking for help was often equated with weakness. You don’t borrow your neighbor’s lawnmower. Instead, you work until you can buy a brand new one, preferably nicer than theirs.

All this to say: you are allowed to put a price on the things you need to do to survive in order to alleviate pressure from the things you want to do. You’ll have more time to create and you’ll feel less drained. I am by no means claiming you should do your day job and then give away your creative endeavors for free (a sure way to be taken advantage of), but you will do some of your best work when paying your rent isn’t hanging in the balance. As time passes, if you stick to your guns, you’ll find people who are more than willing to pay you for your skillset because your experience and passion will be evident, shining through in conversation. You’ll sound like you know what you’re talking about because you do know what you’re talking about, and that’s when you quote them exactly what you know you’re worth.   

3. Art is Work

If something takes time and energy, it is work. That’s just science, y’all. When you start pursuing a career and taking risks in your chosen field (i.e. going on a tour, fundraising for a record, or moving to a different city), you WILL encounter naysayers. People who are creatively blocked, or don’t believe themselves to be creative, will inevitably question you. You’re rocking the boat, and it makes them uncomfortable. Some will be inspired by your efforts, while others who haven’t felt inspiration in years, interpret it as condemnation - as if your differing priorities are a subtle attempt to shame their own. Suddenly, you feel obtrusive for simply talking about your dreams.

The easiest way to tell who has an alcohol problem at a party is by casually mentioning you’re not drinking - then wait to see who tries to pour tequila down your throat. It’s the same with risk-taking: the ones who barrage you with questions about how you’ll make money or say things like, “You know, men don’t like strong women”, are the ones subconsciously wondering what might’ve happened if they hadn’t surrendered their entire existence to the promise of a 401K.

Is there anything wrong with a 401K? Of course not. (I had to Google the definition, but it sounds pretty okay!) What’s not okay is acting as the voice of cynicism and chopping away at someone’s dreams just because they chose to take a different, less security-oriented path. Thankfully, we get to choose to ignore those voices.

Work: “Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.”

Granted, there is a secondary definition that involves “employment for the sake of earning income”, but the primary definition of work is rooted in a sense of purpose, while the second involves a focus on money. The irony is that so much of what we do to achieve a sense of purpose involves no money, while much of what we do for money seemingly involves no purpose. The goal is to find what inherently gives us a sense of meaning and then, without shame, gradually let the mental and physical effort we put forth provide for us monetarily as well.

We can absolutely pursue our passions while having unrelated day jobs, but there are only 24 hours in a given day, and we should be sleeping for a third of them. If you want your craft to become full-time, you’ll have to channel your energies in a way that eventually releases you from the hours spent wiping tables or sitting in a cubicle. Balancing family life, physical and mental health, and pursuing inspiration in the form of reading, travel, and rest are not luxuries - they are the foundation of a thriving human life. We are allowed to remove what doesn’t serve us or find a way to better make it serve us. For instance: asking for a well-deserved raise so you can spend less hours at work and more hours in a studio or with your children isn’t brash or selfish, it’s actually the most responsible thing.

Here’s what happened to me: I trusted my gut and moved to a different city the week before I turned 22. Shortly thereafter, I started playing shows, making an album, and meeting tons of new people, but I was also a very small fish in a very big pond. This was equally as difficult as it was necessary to my growth as an artist. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hit what I thought were impenetrable emotional walls trying to salvage a sense of confidence or originality. On any given day, at any given restaurant, I inadvertently share space with Grammy-award winners. I’m not exaggerating - I once showed up to a random babysitting job to find FOUR Grammys sitting on top of their father’s desk. How the hell am I supposed to ever feel like a real musician?

It comes down to this: I choose to. I’m reminded of the truth - that this little indie-artist is just as worthy of the label “musician” as those who’ve won awards or been on television. Plus, If I actually think about it, winning a Grammy has never been a personal goal. So why am I gauging my definition of success against those who have what I don’t even want? I’m a musician because I play music whether or not people are watching.

Now when I go home, the same people who questioned my choices and intentions think I’m living a revolutionary existence simply because I’ve been on a few short (self-booked) tours and saw Kelly Clarkson in person once. The point is: If you learn how to climb the walls, you end up stronger. The naysayers either come around or end up on the other side of the wall. A mere few years after people are done discouraging you for your work, they’ll be applauding you for it, or they just won’t have anything to say at all. You will ALWAYS fall somewhere different on the “success” spectrum depending on where you are and who you are around, but if you haven’t decided you’re allowed to be an artist, you’re going to let other people decide for you - and if you don’t decide to get off of that roller coaster, it’s going to inevitably make you sick.

One more thing:

As artists, we are constantly biting the bullet. We feel anxiety and act in spite of it. We get vulnerable on stages in front of complete strangers. We work for years with no guarantee of money or recognition. We often find ourselves as sacrifices on the altar of opinion without ever asking to be there. We strive to balance strength with sensitivity, but no one gets to tell us we’re lazy.

My band played a show in Atlanta a few weeks ago, and here’s what our day looked like:

-Wake up at 6am to meet at a central location.

-Load gear into the van.

-Drive 5 hours (with stops).

-Meet up with our fill-in keyboardist.

-Unload gear into his house.

-Practice for three hours.

-Re-load gear back into the van.

-Drive to the venue.

-Unload gear out of the van into aesthetically unpleasing green room.

-Set up merch.

-Wait three hours.

-Sound-check.

-Play the show.

-Talk to people and sell merch.

-Reload gear back into the van AGAIN.

-Drive 4 hours back to Nashville.

-Get home at 2am so no one misses work the next day.

I repeat: No one gets to tell us we’re lazy.

4. “What Do You Want?”

I’ve was technically unemployed for the last two months, though not for lack of searching. As of writing this, I’ve been hired at two different coffee shops, but up until a few days ago I’d been forced into limbo - waiting on callbacks or jobs to actually start.

While not-working in the traditional sense, I’ve had time to, yet again, ask myself what I would LIKE to do. I spent much of the last month bouncing between searching for a local day job and pursuing freelance writing jobs online in order to find something that could travel with me.

After a co-writing session that turned into a two hour pep-talk with my friend Sam, I realized I had a knack for coaching people through their creative frustrations and songwriting hurdles. It hit me over the head like a lightning bolt, so naturally I spent the next week trying to find someone to tell me I wasn’t qualified. No one objected. In fact, most everyone I told deeply affirmed the idea with, “You should TOTALLY do that. You’re made for it!” (I have really good people in my life). Now, slowly but surely, I’m being paid to do it for others because I know how to cultivate a safe space for fledgling (or simply intimidated) artists, after having waded through many of the same trenches myself.

If you’re a driven person over the age of twenty-five, there’s a significant chance you have ten to fifteen years of experience doing SOMETHING that someone else is just starting out doing. There’s also a significant chance they’d desperately love to process with someone further along than they are. Again, I don’t have four Grammys on any of my shelves (I barely have shelves), but I do know what it’s like to wonder if my lyrics are worth showing the world, and I do know the paralyzing terror of hearing your voice played back over speakers for the first time.

The question, “What do you want?” is one of the most dangerous and profound questions you can ask or be asked. Growing up in a dysfunctional church environment, I wasn’t allowed to ask it. I was supposed to ask: “What does GOD want me to do?” Conveniently, there were plenty of ill-intentioned leaders eager to answer on behalf of the congregation my family belonged to, and it usually involved God being suddenly strapped for cash.

A poor sense of the nature of God (the Universe, Creator, Energy, or whatever works for your vocabulary) led me to assume I was required to do the complete opposite of whatever I enjoyed.

“I want to play music on stages where people connect with the songs I’ve written. But that’s clearly egotistical. I guess I’ll have to become a missionary to Africa” (crazy how many of those God seems to need per youth group).

“You have free will and God loves you unconditionally…

But that thing you’ve always dreamed of doing? Not allowed.”

What’s the deal with these mixed messages?

Honestly, what’s more egotistical? Wanting to play music in a band, or assuming God needs you to play the martyr because the salvation of Africa hangs in the balance of your life-choices?  Everybody, chill out.

We spend so much time doing things out of guilt. I’m not saying anyone should become intentionally calloused toward the needs of others, but do you really want a bunch of people at your birthday party who feel obligated to be there? The reason we become cynical is due, in-part, to forcing ourselves into environments, boxes, and facades we were never designed to be a part of in the first place. Try saying “no” to anything you would have done out of guilt or obligation for one week and watch how much healthier you feel and how much more energy you have. “I don’t want to” is a perfectly acceptable answer, and it will change your life and reshape your priorities faster than you can imagine.

So what if, just what if you were put on this earth to do the very thing you love doing? Far-fetched, I know, but let’s all stop pretending we know what the word “reality” means when few of us have been alive for more than eighty-five years. For God’s sake, we exist on a speck of dust floating through space.

Why not leave this place more beautiful and more inspiring than when we entered it? Can you fathom Michelangelo talking himself out of painting the Sistine Chapel? Imagine if he’d convinced himself to take the “humble-route” and pursued a behind-the-scenes life merely on the basis of comfort, but at the expense of his artistic instinct?

I can almost guarantee, if you’re the type of person who is hyper-concerned about becoming an egotistical maniac, you run little risk of it actually happening. Worry about how you’ll deal with fame when you’re actually famous - otherwise you’re wasting precious energy you could be using to fuel your present work. Plus, the world is already running rampant with much bigger ego-maniacs ruining things. The more you exercise your creative nature, the healthier you become. The healthier you become, the more effortlessly you can benefit those around you. Take a deep breath.

5. It Matters.

There’s enough garbage going on in the world. Any remotely sensitive person could easily fall prey to emotional paralysis simply by looking around for too long.

That’s exactly what happens. Whether it’s the pain of poverty or feelings of inadequacy when surrounded by other artists, we all have a difficult time creating because it feels like an uphill battle with no actual results - especially if we’re prone to discrediting ourselves. In a recent conversation with a beloved friend, he expressed feeling a sense of pointlessness when it came to writing new songs. He wasn’t writing out of a place of sadness anymore, and he felt like anything he could say had already been said by one of his influences with a larger fanbase. As a personal fan of his music, I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him (I probably did).

I don’t care if you think your songs sound similar to someone else’s, there are people in the world who have never even heard of the “someone else” you are familiar with. A younger person may stumble upon your art, allowing you to become one of their influences because they happened to be at the right place at the right time and something in your voice resonated in them. The only way you get to decide who crosses paths with your work is by never putting it out there at all.

Redemption happens when all of the aforementioned garbage gets recycled into something even more extraordinary than it was in the first place.

This is the job of the artist: to open ourselves up like the vessels that we are, letting all the sadness and bullshit and divinity swirl around in us until a song spills out and the paint hits the canvas.

If we don’t, we end up miserable and withholding. The way fireflies light up entire forests simply by offering the individual flecks of light they inherently contain is a profound image of what we’re each endowed with, not just as creatives, but as living and breathing human beings.

6. Don’t Fake It (But For God’s Sake, Please Stop Being So Self-Deprecating).

I have a love/hate relationship with the phrase: “Fake it ’til you make it.” On one hand, I appreciate the concept of cultivating confidence through action, but the word “fake” has a disingenuous ring to it. What we’re actually talking about is a form of hyper-honesty.

Call yourself what you are. Stop pretending you are what you’re not. I am definitely not a surgeon, and pretending to be one would only result in a series of lawsuits. But there are things I can do and don’t do, simply by convincing myself I am not qualified enough despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Imposter Syndrome: “a concept describing high-achieving individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a ‘fraud’.”

A few years ago, I showed up to a babysitting job I’d found online. A brand new mother had just moved with her husband from New York City and needed some occasional help watching her newborn son. She was a writer for any number of well-known music publications - Nylon, American Songwriter, etc. She’d also started her own Nashville music blog.

Naturally, I was somewhat intimidated, but I was just there to help with the baby - not try to promote myself. I wasn’t even comfortable enough in my songwriting skin to show my music to friends yet - but she politely asked me about my life and I mentioned it in passing.

One afternoon, after watching one of her artist interviews get derailed by technical difficulties, I sat down with my new journalist friend and her colleague as they drank a glass of wine and I held the baby. I commiserated, while trying to convince them it hadn’t gone nearly as badly as they thought it had. We chatted for a while when, out of nowhere, she directed a question at me:

“You said you play music right?”

“Uhh...yeah?” I said nervously. (I knew exactly where this was going.)

“Will you play us a song? I’m gonna go grab my husband’s guitar.”

“You really don’t have to...”, but she was upstairs before I had time to talk her out of it.

She came back downstairs, acoustic guitar in hand, and I nervously chose one of my songs to play while I kept my eyelids tightly sealed. After all was said and done, both women looked at me dumbfounded. They’d really liked it, and the novelty of living in a city where your babysitter doubles as a decent songwriter hadn’t worn off yet (after a few years, we all safely assume our Uber driver has played Conan at least once).

Without reading a single blog I’d ever posted, hearing another song, or even knowing my education level, she offered me the opportunity to write for her website. It could be as often or as little as I wanted, and while she couldn’t pay me, she could get me into nearly any show I wanted to cover for free.

I took her up on the offer, and what started as free entry into shows turned into, “Hey, do you want to grab a quote from the artist? Here’s their contact email”.

The first time this happened, it was literally hours before the show, and I boldly decided I was going to ask for a full-on interview and see if I could get away with looking like I knew what the hell I was doing. That night, I proceeded to interview Andrew Joslyn, violinist and head of Passenger String Quartet, who were touring as David Bazan’s backing band at the time. Our interview struck up a friendship and resulted in eating late-night food with everyone after the show.

After the first impromptu interview went well, I was asked if I wanted to interview the band Copeland. I recorded the answers to their questions on my shattered iPhone 4 and again, felt the high of an opportunity I had zero formal education in. There are people who go to college for years just hoping to sit down with an artist they respect in order to write a piece and see it published. I was doing it because I’d shown up to the right babysitting job and someone decided to tell me I could be a writer if I wanted to be. All I had to do was take her up on the offer and not shy away from it.

It happened again a few weeks ago. I was able to walk into Grimey’s Record Store an hour before the band Manchester Orchestra released their newest album. I chatted with a bunch of high-profile music industry people (only because I have no idea who they are when I start talking to them). I even got up the nerve to ask Andy Hull for a few words, all while secretly tipping my hat to my teenage self.

And guess what? No one cared. No one kicked me out or said, “Hey, I can’t put my finger on it, but you seem like you don’t belong here.” I was doing exactly what I was there to do. The only person who thought I was getting away with anything was me. I even ran into a friend who’d been specifically hired by the band (and previously, many other reputable artists) to take photos at the cd release. We shared a mutual moment of: “How did we end up here?” 

If I had decided “I’m not a writer, I don’t know how to do this,” or shied away from drafting an email to someone’s publicist for fear of not sounding professional enough, I’d have missed out on these rare chances to ask artists who make me want to play music, what makes them want to play it.

The moral of the story isn’t to name drop or look “cool” (spoiler alert: I’m not). It’s no exaggeration when I say that, immediately after that cd release show I headed to a pet-sitting job to scoop cat litter. Life is interwoven with highs and lows, and misery stalks you the moment you begin over-identifying with any title. But I think maybe, if we took all of the energy we spend on trying to make our lives appear a certain way, and funneled it into saying “yes” to what we’re actually passionate about, we’d be astounded at the places we find ourselves and the (sometimes, very specific) gifts we are handed.

So if you have something you love doing, the only pretending involved is saying you don’t love it or you can’t do it. Sometimes you go out on a limb, but more often than not, it pays off. Sometimes you work for years without any pay all, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t deserving of the title, the same way the title “Mother” and “Father” don’t come attached to a salary.

Stay humble. Take the good with the bad. Successes are often followed by a litter box that needs cleaning. Don’t forget about the people who love you regardless of social standing. Know your worth is inherent and not dictated by what you do. If this sounds reasonable, then by all means, just go do the damn thing.

7. Pay Attention

The mundane is not my forte. In fact, I can book entire tours and endless road trips simply to avoid the dreaded monotony of everyday life. In part, it’s human nature - familiarity can breed contempt, but only if you let it.

It’s too easy to cop out of life when it isn’t exciting. Rather than defining the act of “growing up” as a mandatory selling of your soul to the corporate gods, what if we saw it as true maturity - a realization that the good and the bad aren’t always so cut and dry. In the previous story about how I fell into music blogging, I can almost guarantee that, while driving to babysit, I was thinking: “How much longer do I have to do these peasant jobs before I get to do something distinguished and significant?”

Well, years later, I’m still babysitting people’s kids and scooping cat litter. But I’ve also interviewed bands, toured with my own music, and now help people work through their artistic paralysis. If I’d been above taking care of someone’s son (a pretty significant job, actually), I wouldn’t have crossed paths with the same opportunities, or maybe I would have been too apathetic to recognize the things that were unfolding in ways I wouldn’t have predicted.

But let’s forget about the future for a moment.

Nothing is guaranteed. We are free to dream or watch television, go to church or not go to church, talk to the homeless person or walk past them because we don’t know how to respond. We will make mistakes. We will feel ill-equipped. We will tragically lose loved ones and wonder if there’s even a point in trying. Then, we may see art blossom from the depths of despair - not because we were aiming to make a concept album, (our minds wouldn’t dare to prostitute the heartache) but rather because, “art is born in attention.” - Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Cameron goes on to say:

Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details (for instance, the excruciatingly beautiful curve of a lost lover’s neck). Art may seem to involve broad strokes, grand schemes, great plans. But it is the attention that stays with us; the singular image is what haunts us and becomes art. Even in the midst of pain, this singular image brings delight. The artist who tells you different is lying.

We don’t need to be sad to make art.

We simply need to be paying attention.

Maybe you’re up every day at the crack of dawn opening a coffee shop. You have five minutes to yourself before your co-workers all show up. You’re thinking about how much longer you can “keep doing this shit,” when you happen to notice the streaks of pink sky out the window as the sun is coming up. You take a deep breath. The steam from the coffee billows around your hands and the smell suddenly reminds you of a camping trip you took with your dad when you were seven.

Inspiration is limitless. It is unwarranted and uncontrolled. It seeps in like water and saturates anything even remotely permeable. So we must remain permeable, present, and open-handed. Yes, there is benefit to having discipline in order to actively create (the only reason I was able to drag myself out of bed and into writing today), but if you aren’t allowing inspiration in, what can you expect to put forth? If you can’t take a moment to breathe, even in the midst of work - to thank life for a second of stillness and for letting you be a part of it, then your attempts at productivity will likely be met with frustration.

It is in your nature to create. You think it’s in your nature to work a desk-job you hate for nine hours a day for the rest of your life. You think doing so is “responsible”, but if you really contemplate it, it doesn’t make any sense.

You are a living organism - more closely related to a plant than to a robot. If you act in accordance, you’ll see what happens when you begin trusting yourself to do what you were born to do. You’ll see what happens when, instead of making assumptions about coworkers, you realize they each contain a universe within themselves and have a story to tell. Unexpectedly, you not only see them through a new lens, but you see yourself differently. Your spine straightens with a sense of purpose and you go home to channel what you’ve seen, heard, and tasted so tangibly all day into something that might even move someone else, should they choose to pay attention.

The only moment that exists to us is the one we are experiencing right now, so do your best to honor it. Stop trying to fix the past or manipulate the future. Each moment is building toward something greater than itself, but if we try to rush the process, our foundation gets half-built and the entire thing collapses on itself.

Instead, slow down. Look around. Take a deep breath.

We are overwhelmingly surrounded by wonder.

For creative coaching, email:  [email protected]

[kawaiifunhologram-blog]

What is the penalty for driving without insurance on a motorbike, as i feel it was a genuine oversight?

"What is the penalty for driving without insurance on a motorbike, as i feel it was a genuine oversight?

I was stopped because of a broken rear light and as it happens my insurance had expired about 4 days before. I wasn't aware that the insurance expired , i thought it was at the end of the month. I didn't receive any reminder because i had forgotten to change address with the insurance company, which was completely my fault. This is a genuine oversight on my part, but I'm not sure if they'll look at previous incident i had with my cousins car when i was a teenager about 7 years ago, i got caught driving without insurance. Probably one of the stupidest things i have done but i learned from it, but the court may not look at it like that. Should i get a solicitor and does anyone know how much they cost? Will i be suspended from driving?

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How do I go about this? Car insurance for myself and get the car in my name?

My mom is giving me her old car. She has it in her name, and I want to put it in my own name with my own car insurance. I'm moving out so this is the reason for it. I live in Florida.""

Do Americans want Gov't run healthcare like medicaid and medicare or do they want affordable health insurance?

Do Americans want Gov't run healthcare like medicaid and medicare or do they want affordable health insurance?

""I got a DUI, will my auto insurance drop me?""

I have AAA, and got a DUI ast year, my insurance hasent gone up yet, but I know it will. Do you think AAA will drop me, since they are such a huge company, and will I have to go get some cheap ol' coverage now? I pay around $125 at the beginning of my policy for the year, then it goes down a little each month, my last payment is around $30, then it starts over again. Ive been w/ them for a few years, w/ a perfect record, until now. The DUI wasnt for alcohol or illegal drugs, it was for prescription medication. I tried a new med, but made the choice to drive also, and this is what I got. Any help?""

I need insurance?

Where can I find insurance. Its me and my husband only and he is a selfemployed fisherman. Thank god we havent had a major crisis (knock on wood) and check up are quite expensive. I plan on having kids and thats not any cheaper. Please point me in the right direction

Where can i get the best deal on sr-22 insurance?

i live in pleasant hill iowa right off of des moines and i need to get the best quote on sr-22 does anyone a good insurance company?

Can you leave modifications off your car insurance if your car is modified?

I am just wondering, if you have to name modifications to your car on your car insurance, or can you leave them off to make the insurance cheaper. And is it against the law to leave them off your car insurance? Thanks for any help :)""

Am I too young to have life insurance?

The reason why I am asking this question is because some people have told me that I am too young to have life insurance. I am 22 years old getting ready to get married next month and my fiance and I have a 18 month old. I also work full-time making a comfortable salary and I am also in school part-time. I am the breadwinner because my fiance is in medical school. I am looking to save for the long run and cut expenses where I can. I currently have a 401-k where my employer matches me 6%. I currently pay 50 a month for a 400k policy and also have a policy through my employer which is free. I was told that 50 a month for my life insurance is a good price because of my age and could be higher if I smoked and were older. I just need some advice guys

Can i buy car insurance in another state?

I live in PA, but im currently staying in Iowa for another month. Just bought a car here with a temperary plate, and i was wondering if i can buy insurance here so i can drive this car around for a month, then ship it over and register it over there. Thanks!""

Is it illegal to fake my GPA for lower car insurance?

if so, can they do anything about it, like take me to court or have me arrested? i ****** up my fist semester of college and now that i have my license i have to get insurance. my dad said i better have at least a 3.0 or else.. should i just do it?""

Where can I find affordable renters insurance in northwest indiana?

Where can I find affordable renters insurance in northwest indiana?

Will one point on my license make my insurance rate increase?

I have been driving for about two years. Being a new driver, my insurance rate is of course considerably high (on a side note, I think auto insurance is legalized theft). Now. Aside from that, I received a speeding ticket. It was 83 mph in a 55 zone. Oops. In court, the judge reduced it from two points to one point on my license, and the record now shows 64 in a 55. Should I expect an increase in my insurance rates? I am insured with Allstate.""

Trying to get public liability insurance?

I am a self employed sub-contractor for a drylining and plastering company. I am trying to get public liability insurance but every single insurance website or insurance comparing website keeps asking me for my business details and address and whether I have any employees and how long business has been trading etc....obviously none of these are applicable to me as I don't own and run a business but can't complete the form without the details. Can any other sub contractors tell me how they filled theirs in?

What is the penalty for driving without insurance on a motorbike, as i feel it was a genuine oversight?

I was stopped because of a broken rear light and as it happens my insurance had expired about 4 days before. I wasn't aware that the insurance expired , i thought it was at the end of the month. I didn't receive any reminder because i had forgotten to change address with the insurance company, which was completely my fault. This is a genuine oversight on my part, but I'm not sure if they'll look at previous incident i had with my cousins car when i was a teenager about 7 years ago, i got caught driving without insurance. Probably one of the stupidest things i have done but i learned from it, but the court may not look at it like that. Should i get a solicitor and does anyone know how much they cost? Will i be suspended from driving?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-estimated-insurance-car-self-maus"

[cohesionarts]

This just in from Cohesion Arts

New Post has been published on http://cohesionarts.com/2017/01/02/whered-paul-go/

Where'd Paul Go??

I can’t really know if anybody besides me has been asking that question, but if you’re one of the regulars around here (the numbers may not be legion, but I know they are sincere…) you may have been wondering why the frequency of posts to this site dropped off dramatically in the second half of last year (2016).

At least, I hope somebody noticed, and even if nobody did notice, I’m going to attempt to explain the absence.

So, where did Paul go?

He sorta went into hiding for awhile. His innate tendency to be reclusive and withdrawn when things “go all pear-shaped” got the better of him for several months.

Or, rather, maybe, he just had the wind kicked out of him, and he’s been trying to catch his breath.

Or maybe he’s been thrown into the middle of a lake and is treading water, trying to figure which shore to swim to.

Yeah, that’s it. Treading water.

Chalk it all up to disruption on a personally cosmic scale.

– – – – – – –

I remember exactly when the fabric of my universe started to tear: April 29, 2016.

Ann and I were in Portland, Oregon. She got back in the car and said,

“They want me to start August 1st.”

At that moment, the Big Bang Theory went into full reverse and my Universe started to implode….

We were in Portland to visit “the kids” – that would be Ann’s two sons, James and Robert (they are by no means “kids” – I can never remember their exact ages but it’s somewhere in the vicinity of 40 years old), her daughter-in-law – Robert’s wife, Melissa – and, more notably, Robert and Melissa’s baby daughter, Ann’s first – and quite possibly her only – grandchild, Juniper Rae.

Juniper Rae

We’d gone to Portland ostensibly for Juniper’s first birthday. She was born in May of 2015, and we’d both flown up to Portland for that; Ann had gotten there within hours of the baby’s arrival, I followed a week later. Photos here.

Now we were back for the first birthday, and Major Changes were afoot. They’d started in earnest the previously fall, but really the fuse started burning toward an inexorable explosion as soon as Melissa’s pregnancy was announced back in the summer of 2014.

The fuse started burning with that announcement, but the first cherry bomb didn’t go off until a year later, when Ann let me know that sooner or later she was moving to Oregon. And that I could come… if I wanted. It was all about being a grandparent. Which concept I might not have been sufficiently enthusiastic about, owing in part perhaps to the fact that I’d never met the prerequisite of being an actual parent myself.

“I’m going to find a job and I might just pack up and move,” she said, back in November of 2015. “If you’d like to come with me that’s great. If you don’t, that’s fine, too.”

Juniper was about 6 months old when Ann threw down that gauntlet.

Now here we were in Portland roughly another six months later, and the prophecy was coming true.

Prior to flying out to Portland for Juni’s birthday, Ann had started making… arrangements. Ann is a nurse, and for the past nearly two decades she has worked for a multinational corporation, a health care company that has offices and clinics all over the country. Prior to our trip to Portland, she started scanning the company’s bulletin boards to see what sort of opportunities she could find in the Portland area.

Sure enough, there was a new clinic opening in a Portland suburb, and Ann arranged an interview.

We flew to Portland on Thursday, April 28. The next morning I dropped her off for her interview and went off to a Starbucks nearby. She sent me a text when the interview was over, I went back to pick her up, she got back in the car and said “they want me to start on August 1.”

Cue the Big Bang Theory, only set it in reverse….

*

I have lived in Nashville (OK, I’m technically in Pegram, in the next county over, but who’s counting?) since February, 1994. It’ll be 23 years I’ve lived here come next Valentines Day.

That’s more than twice as long as I’ve lived anywhere in my whole life. When I was a kid I lived in Rumson, New Jersey, from age 0 until I was almost 12, when my mother and (new) step father moved us to a suburb in New Jersey that was closer to his office in New York. I also lived in Hawaii from 1980 until 1994, though the last two years of that residency was spent mostly in Los Angeles, going back and forth to Maui.

(Insert obscure Pop Culture reference here:

They even brought a neon sign!

In Hawaii, I lived near a line in an Eagles song:

You can leave it all behind and sail to Lahaina Just like the missionaries did so many years ago They even brought a neon sign ‘Jesus is Coming’, Brought the white man’s burden down, brought the white man’s reign

Yeah, that’s what I did in 1980. And I drove by that neon sign almost every day.)

So by any calculus, I’ve lived here in Middle Tennessee longer than I’ve lived anywhere. When people ask me “where you from” I will make a big deal about being from ‘Springsteen Country – Monmouth County, New Jersey.” But then I will tell them, “but I’ve lived in Nashville longer than I’ve lived anywhere, so I’m from here now….”

At the time Ann was living in Austin.  We’d met at a music festival in Texas the previous spring, and we maintained a “long distance relationship” until January of 1998, when she pulled up stakes and moved to Tennessee – to be with me.

Her nursing career had begun only a couple of years before. She was divorced (twice, but we don’t have to go into the second one) from the father of her two sons, who were in their early 20s and living with her and doing to school in Austin. When she decided to move to Nashville, she set ‘the boys’ out on their own and put her house up for rent. Then she put everything she owned in a U-Haul and with a friend made the trek from Texas to Tennessee.

The apartment I was living in at the time was tiny, and mostly filled with the CDs for songs.com – the online music service I’d started two years earlier. So Ann got her own apartment in the same complex where I lived in Bellevue, and for the next 18 months or so, we “lived together in separate apartments…”

In the spring of 1999 we bought a house together. When I’d first come to Nashville in 1994 real estate was still quite affordable, but by the time we started looking around in 1999 prices within Nashville / Davidson County were already inflating out of reach (never mind how much farther they’ve gotten out of reach since).  So we found a charming little ‘ersatz Cape Cod’ on an acre of land on a quiet cul-de-sac in Pegram, one exit off I-40 west of the last exit in Davidson County.

We put both or our names on the deed, and moved in together in May of 1999.

I sold that Internet music business later that year. At the very peak of the Internet Bubble Gaylord Entertainment came knocking and offered us stupid money for a tiny business. My partners (Tom Kimmel and Michael Camp) and I pondered the proposition for about 15 seconds and said “OK.” We closed the deal in December ’99, and the first call I made after banking the proceeds was to the bank that held our mortgage, which I paid off.

Perhaps due to some family history (my father died when I was 7), I’ve never been one for making or pursuing goals in life. But the one dream/fantasy/goal I’d ever had as to live in a paid-for house. I notched that one at the end of 1999. By the time that happened, Ann and I had already been living there for about six months.

Ann and I got married in September, 2000. We went on a two-week honeymoon to England and Germany. We got rained on at Ludlow Castle in the Cotswolds, and went through crazy King Ludwig II’s Fantasyland Castle in Bavaria. Then we returned to hour shared house in Pegram and settled in “for the duration.”

Once again proving that “everything is permanent… for as long as it lasts.”

*

Here is where, in the first draft of this reminiscence, I started to go into some detail about how Ann and I had moved in to the house together and the considerable (and costly!) improvements we made over the years. How the deal with Gaylord Entertainment went south within a year, and how I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up ever since.

How I went into a form of hiding in the days and weeks after Ann departed.

But that’s all a lot more detail than I need to go into for the purposes of this testimonial. Maybe another time…

Instead, we return to Portland in April and May. Ann and I stayed there about a week. Juni had her first birthday party, attended by children and their parents from Rob and Melissa’s community of friends. I took pictures.

And the wheels started turning toward Ann’s departure. I say “Ann’s departure” because from the moment she got back in the car, it was obvious that she was moving to Portland… and I was not. At least, not yet….

We came back to Nashville, and almost immediately, Ann started pulling things together and packing things up. Over the ensuing several weeks, things that we had shared for years started disappearing. Things like the steak knives we’d used since 1999. She stopped feeding the birds in the backyard. It was always little things, but it was little things that added up to a big thing.

If you’ve read this far, I think you get the gist.

Ann packed up her Subaru SUV and drove off with her friend Evelyn (Thelma and Louise!!) and left for Portland on July 20.

http://cohesionarts.com/art/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/IMG_0805-1.m4v

  Amid all the other cosmic/global upheavals of the past 12 months, I have been going through my own fundamental disruption and realignment.

I have been to Portland three times in the 5-1/2 months since Ann moved there. She has yet to visit Nashville.

And I have been, for the most part, creatively inert. I haven’t written much, I haven’t taken any pictures, I haven’t played much guitar. I’ve posted only a few things to this blog, and there hasn’t been a “Weekly Digest” since the week before the election.   What little output I have made has been pretty much  confined to Facebook – which lends it self to short, quick, snarky diatribes that don’t require a whole lot of actual thought.

Maybe I’ve been quiet because it’s hard to keep creative energy flowing when all the energy you have is just going into riding the waves of an emotional roller coaster, when it takes all your strength to just hold yourself together when it feels like the world around you is falling apart. Like I told my therapist recently, “I’m exhausted.”

For as long as it has been – too long, really – since my business blew up in 2000, I have fully expected that I would find something to do that would spring from my own creative energy. First I wrote a book and got it published. Thinking I’d found my new calling as a “biographer of obscure 20th century scientists” I went on to write another. That turned into six years going down a rabbit hole in which there was no fucking rabbit.

After that, I turned my attention to photography, and even my therapist thought I was “on to something” when I first started creating the “Portals of Stone” from my trip to the UK in the spring of 2013. I started exhibiting at a gallery in the Arcade. I tried to own my identity as “an artist.” But mostly what I got was a first-hand education in how truly difficult that is.

Long and short of it, really nothing I’ve undertaken over the past 15 years has come to fruition anything like that company I started back in 1995. I’ve spent all that time as “an entrepreneur between startups” or “an author between books.” Or a photographer wandering among medieval ruins, looking for continuity in time and space…

But once I was living alone, I finally found a partial answer to the question I’ve been asking myself at 4:00AM every morning for the past 15 years, “what will I do when I grow up?”

I finally broke down and got a real “job.”

For the past four months, I have been working for Apple, at their store in the Green Hills Mall in Nashville, where I am a “product specialist.” It’s a glorified title for a retail salesperson, but I rather like the work and I seem well-suited for it.

I really have prided myself, over the course of my life generally, but of the past decade-and-half specifically, for never having worked for any giant corporations. The two previous exceptions where a brief stint as a securities peddler for the Maui branch of a Wall Street brokerage, and then my 10 months as an ‘executive’ for Gaylord Entertainment.

Neither of those situations was a particularly good fit. The Wall Street thing dissolved when I decided instead to go to Los Angeles and study music. At Gaylord, I was “the New York Jewish bull in Gaylord’s Southern Christian China shop.”

But as giant corporations go, Apple is a good one – at least from the perspective of a rank-and-file employee at one of their retail stores. The environment is stimulating and supportive; the hours are flexible and predicated as much on my own schedule  as theirs.  Since I get to spend the hours there talking about products that I use personally, that I know almost inside and out, it’s just the most natural fit I was ever going to find. And given what else was going on in my life when I applied for the job, I am grateful that they looked at my resume (…”What, you haven’t really had a job for 15 years?…) and said “OK.”

So for the past few months, I have been spending most of my waking hours seeking an unexpected refuge in the form of a conventional “day job” that I actually look forward to going to every day. As challenging as some of the customer interactions can be sometimes (“…Whaddya mean you don’t know your password…???”), it’s always a bit of a let down when it’s time to leave. And I really like the person I turn into when I go out on the floor.

So a lot of my time and energy over the past 4 months has gone into adapting to a very different reality from everything that went before.

– – – – –

Earlier today I opened WordPress for the first time in weeks (months?) and posted two items. And I’ve been writing this gem all day. It’s literally the first time I have spent a whole day in my own creative space in several months.

So maybe there is something to this “dawning of a new year” business, even if it does mean that Donald-Fucking-Trump is going to be President for the next four years (or until we nuclear-annihilate ourselves, which ever comes first).

It feels like the fog is lifting. That maybe there’s some light at the end of this tunnel, though I suspect there could be more tunnel before I actually get to the light.

This will do for now.

But that’s where Paul went.