Sunday, February 21^st, 2021

Somedays, the only thing I believe I need is to relate. Looking around and finding a person who’s going through the same feeling as me. Surely, we are a lot more than I perceive in this kind of nebula, but some common factors have made the encounter difficult and awkward, they have pushed us away and made us feel uncomfortable and alone in the setback.

I was interested in music mostly because of my father, his approach was more intuitive and playful than theoretical. He was a jeweler but he played basic drums and keyboards and once in a while he would attend some music classes that would not take more than a couple of months to get him bored. When I finally got into it, I wanted to take it seriously, but I also would have problems to continue being engaged in the classes, I joined a band as a bass player and additionally started to record myself playing little melodies with a Casiotone keyboard, electric bass, and some percussion and voice samples, but I remember how right in that moment I began to undervalue my own creativity and effort. My dad would invite me to jam with him and encouraged me to approach music in that ludic and effortless way but I would feel that I needed to think in advance to come up with something relevant, otherwise it was a waste of time. I became obsessed with the idea of making a great thing or nothing at all, not sharing my progress because the results were unprofessional or too amateurish, and to put the artists I liked on a level I could never be even close to.

I studied Music and Technology in a public university and graduated with a Bachelor's degree two years ago. My entire career was founded on the base that I didn't know really well what I was doing, that my work wasn't really conscious, and I was only trained to be a “good student”, but not creative, not passionate, not dedicated. I started to get more and more into electronic music production but kept struggling with showing progress to others and releasing final versions of my work. Having extreme ups and downs regarding the appreciation of my compositions, on the same day I would think either it was a faithful representation of my vision or pure trash in just a matter of minutes. In the ups, I would work on my sessions in small periods of time with low concentration, making little progress but quickly losing interest in what I was doing. And in the downs I would entangle myself in thinking of getting older and being far from where I wanted to be, going on social media and increasing my anxiety observing the perfect life I wanted, being experienced by others (at least that's what you normally get from that, but that's another conversation).

Of course, this is still happening to me these days, but recent therapy sessions have made me realize that this combo is related to some deeper practices and tendencies I have experienced since I was a child. As time went by I became substantially aware of my perfectionist self fed by adult's and own expectations, which led to massive amounts of pressure and stress that I put on myself to be up to the occasion. Now I can also recognize my first signs of OCD with intrusive thoughts, anxiety and depression, they were there since the beginning of times, and although it would have been great to have this knowledge on my side in the course of my past years of life, having it now gives me so much power and freedom.

I am usually very skeptical when it comes to positive messages and optimism, fearing that they will be tacky and given from a privilege point of view, and in some cases that might be true. But sometimes for me that line is extremely blurred and I should be aware that it could be my self boycott tendencies trying to pull me back to the paralysis mode.

I am learning to grow into a less over thinker individual, I am learning patience. Setting small goals and trusting the process, leaving aside the idea of recognition and trying to remind myself that I am here for the long run because I enjoy making music. That I am doing it from a sincere place and evolving is in our nature if we are consistent.

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