Just got back from seeing Lyle Lovett (incredible show, chills up your spine moments at times) and I’ve been wondering how odd it seems that traveling musician is a career. All he has is some stories and some songs and some friends who are incredible musicians and that is all he needs to live his life. The Ditty Bops take it to the extreme where they can bike across the country and play shows along the way and it is perfectly normal for them to do so. It just seems bizarre when you look at it on those terms.
Of course, being a musician or an entertainer has been an option for centuries from the troubadour on down. People have always needed to be entertained, to listen to stories and to have someone attempt to explain to them what life is really about. They go out and make people happy or at least have an emotional release (I’m not sure if anyone ever went to a Cure show to be happy). It is a very noble profession and I mean that in the truest sense. I have a great admiration for people who go out and tell the world their story.
The reason my mind has been on this is because of a conversation I had back in Nola. We were sitting down at dinner and someone asked what everyone did for a living. So we went around and it was like “I’m a teacher”, “I work with special needs students” “I’m going to spend the next year volunteering”, which meant that by the time I got to me I was like “I’m pretty much pure evil.”
Ok, that is admittedly pretty critical but I have to admit I have a very trivial job. It pays well and I am surprisingly good at it but basically it is a role in which I encourage rampant consumerism. The positive part is that I am making rampant consumerism easier, which can be considered a good thing when looked at in a certain light. Still compared to the people I was with a few weeks back it seems kind of silly.
(Sidebar: I am still impressed and encouraged and inspired by the people that I met while working in Nola. These are people living the life that I would much rather see myself lead.)
It ties into Nick Hornby’s “How to be Good”, which I’m reading right now. In it he discusses what does it mean to truly be good in our world. I mean, though I joke about being evil I do think that I am a good person at heart. I donate money, I volunteer here or there, I get into few arguments, on the whole I would like to think that I am a positive benefit to society in that if you replaced me with a potted plant the world would suffer. But when you compare that to what I could potentially do, all of the good that I am capable of if I would just try, well then your life suddenly becomes a lot starker and a lot less noble.
It’s strange that most people would look at a musician and go “Why don’t you get a real job” and see me in an office and go “Now that is what a young professional should be doing.” In some ways I really feel that the reverse is true. There is a way to do good in every profession, a way to make your life as valuable as it can be, I just need to put the pieces back together again.
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