“Would you be happy if you hadn’t made it big as a singer/songwriter?”

[raccoon]

I dreamed I asked Bob Dylan that. In the dream, I didn’t get an answer, unfortunately.

What I was really asking him was, “Would you be happy if you hadn’t followed your heart?”

I guess there is no answer to that. No one-size-fits-all answer, anyway. Many people now and in past generations have dreamed of being a rock star, artist, etc. Most of the time, parents and other authority figures discourage this, or at least emphasize that the person get their business degree/ teaching certificate, etc., in case the dream doesn’t pan out. Because for every person who makes it big as a singer-songwriter, writer, actor, artist, sports star, there are thousands who don’t. And among those I’m sure there are thousands who truly believed that was their destiny, that they had the right stuff, and truly put forth their very best efforts—and they never made it big and/or even were able to make a living.

I would add that nowadays, even if one gets the business degree/teaching certificate, etc., they may not be able to find employment in their area. In that case, maybe it would be just as well to pursue acting, art, whatever.

Your thoughts?

[blogslut]

1. sigh

I'd rather not say.

[Jamastiene]

2. I will always resent the people who constantly put me down

where I live about playing guitar. Time and again, I have heard of punk scenes in different areas of the country where I could have done well, at least enough to be satisfied and to have survived comfortably, but no, my stupid family wanted me to be a worthless drone in a town that boasts Wal-Mart is the biggest employer. What a shitty life. I can't wait until it's over. I wish I was closer to 78 instead of only 38. What a shitty huge amount of years I have left to waste living this shit life.

[raccoon]

3. I'm sorry to hear that, Jamas.

Sounds like my brother-in-law. He's an accomplished guitar player and over the years, has played in bands in some local lounges, also in his church. He's hated every job he's ever had.

Do you have the opportunity to play some locally?

[Jamastiene]

4. The people I used to play with all moved out of town and so

did the clubs we played at. It was a different time in the 90s. There was hope even in an area like this and more clubs that were for the people who like the music I played. I don't even have time now to play at home. I can't even listen to one song all the way though without my aunt needing me. She has MS. I'm the only member of the family ever considered for the job of taking care of her and she is 100% my responsibility. It doesn't leave time for myself. It's also what I spend less time even on DU any more. It's just sporadic, when I have a minute. I wish I had just a little of my hope or my life back, but I don't see anything getting better any time soon.

Our Goody's store is closing here now too. Everything is closing, from stores to places to work. I'd trade my poverty, physical back pain, and misery for poverty, health, and hope to get to enjoy music again any day of the week. It's a damn shame to have a degree and nowhere that hires for it. They really shouldn't fake community college students out in towns like this by offering degrees in jobs that just are not within 100 miles around here. It's a shit life, like I said.

At this point, I would be happy if my back would quit hurting, the VA would quit just taking half of my aunt's check every other month to pay for the co-pay when she was Viet Nam era (until Reagan summarily changed the years that counted as Viet Nam) and maybe send some equipment to help lift her. She weighs more than I do. I don't know how much more my back can take. I doubt I could even hold my guitar at this point in life.

My body and mind are destroyed. Part of that is good though. My mother and her pipe dreams of me being some kind of rocket scientist in a shit town with no opportunities (except the grand glorious Wal Mart) cannot come true if I have a destroyed mind. I'm GLAD my IQ or memory or whatever caused me to be smart when I was younger has gone downhill. I resent the years I spent in college while teachers, my parents, faculty, and staff, alike, acted as if computer engineers were actually needed in this area, the lying fucks. I might start fitting in better in redneck hateland smalltown, NC if I become dumb enough, strung out enough on meth, and broken down enough mentally and physically like everyone else around here. Maybe I'll fit in with the rest of the natives here better if I can totally destroy my mind and have no more thoughts of my own.

Maybe, the years will start to go by faster. That is my last hope. At least finally becoming worm food one day has some poetic integrity to it unlike living this shit life. There truly is no hope. I wish it could be different.

[abq e streeter]

6. I'm so sorry to read of the difficulties and challenges you face

I don't even know what to say...just that I hope things somehow get better and more bearable. From a stranger on DU who cares, for what little that's worth-----------abq e streeter

[abq e streeter]

5. I'm one of those who'll go to his grave believing I could have "made it"

had I had the self confidence and self discipline to have done the hard work it would have taken. But I also think maybe god ( he, she, them and it) was watching out for me ; that I couldn't have ,when I was younger, handled the pressure and/or the temptations that "making it" would have brought. I also didn't use my considerable intelligence to become successful in a profession besides music either ,for the same reasons, and have equal regrets as I do musically . At least I've gained some small level of local recognition as a musician and realize that I, in my own small way, have been part of the grand tradition of rock and roll; not everyone can be a star, somebody's gotta play the little New Mexico roadhouses too.....Also have witnessed first hand how making it big as a songwriter screwed up a friend's writing... My friend Nick wrote a national # one song in the mid-seventies and after that , he said instead of writing from his heart, he tried to write another hit, and it permanently affected, in a negative way, the quality of his writing. So after this long tangent, my advice to the younger people is believe in yourself, while being coldly objective and realistic about the nature and amount of your talent, and that there's nothing wrong with simultaneously preparing for more than one possible future. I.E. going for it, but preparing an alternative way of having a life in case it doesn't pan out.