Music! Let’s talk about music today. I stopped by the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on my way out of town. I had been planning on being there for only an hour or so, but I actually found the place to be pretty awesome so I stuck around for the better part of the day. Yes, it’s a bit touristy, but the natural power of the music can’t hide, and the smartest thing they do is basically just put you in front of some awesome artists doing their thing as often as possible. There’s a bunch of displays and memorabilia, but I spent most of my time watching various compilations they put together, including awesome ones about early influences on rock, Elvis, and the modern phenomenon of music festivals. Music has been a completely underrated part of my life. And it’s important to me to fix that. Oh, I’ve always enjoyed music in my own way, mostly by listening to the same things over and over again. But I’m never taken a systematic approach to music appreciation. And even more importantly, I’ve gotten out of the habit of *playing* music. And I want to address both of those things. The fact is that I would rather make mediocre music, be a mediocre athlete, and a mediocre theater actor, then simply miss out on those things. I’m OK with sucking, and that’s a big shift in my life. I need to do these things, even if it’s only for myself. I need to do them for the sheer joy of doing them. Even if nobody ever listens.
There’s something awesome about lying in your own pitched tent. It’s fun to construct your own little hidey-hole. I like the enclosed feeling, too. I imagine it’s a bit like the way dog behaviorists describe a dog’s reaction to its cage. It reduces anxiety to be in this little space. My whole world consists of the possessions I have with me, which fit in a little pile in the corner. That’s nice. Tidy.
Today I had another one of those interactions that my life seems to have become famous for; the full-on social anxiety kind. This one almost came to blows (its a boring story but it involved overbooking hostel beds). What made it interesting and unique, though, was that I was acutely aware that the other person was the more nervous of the two of us. In a weird way I felt like that was kind of a milestone for me. I actually came away relatively pleased with the progress I’ve made and proud of the way I acted. Don’t get me wrong, it was a C+ kind of encounter. But considering I’m a bit of a D- student when it comes to these things, I feel like it was a step in the right direction. I stood up for myself, there were no lasting negative consequences, and while I don’t think I made a friend, at least I’m not ashamed of how it went. I’m just not that good at dealing with other people in situations like these, and I suspect I never really will be. But it’s clear - and this is no big surprise, since I suspect it’s true for almost everyone - my poor performance in stressful situations is directly related to my overall anxiety level, often about totally unrelated things. It’s like my life is one big example of those coffee mugs that say “don’t talk to me before I’ve had 3 cups”. It’s like, “don’t talk to me until I figure my life out and exercise for at least 2 hours”.
I had a bad evening tonight. Partly it was my own fault, partly circumstance, part bad luck, but I found myself wandering the back woods of northern Ohio at 11:45 PM, with my battery light fading, on dark two-lane country roads. At one point a car came up behind me and I tried to get off the road and instead ended up face down in a ditch. A lot of thoughts went through my head, most of them unproductive. But the one I always come back to is that I’m not terribly sure if anyone would really care if something bad happened to me out there. A few people would be mildly sad, sure, but I’m pretty alone in this life, or at least it feels that way. I realize that, devoid of my mental context, that statement might seem pretty self-serving and self-pitying, but it isn’t, not really. I don’t feel bad about that fact. It’s true that my life hasn’t worked out the way I wanted. I wanted a relationship - still do. Sure, in the immediate sense, I chose to ride my bike around the country alone, but I’ve made no secret of the fact that, if I had my preference, I’d be living with a wife and maybe even a kid, in a house near SF or Austin or someplace cool like that, huge family Christmases, tons of relatives, that sort of thing. But that didn’t happen, and the resentment I feel about that - while it’s still there someplace - no longer has the fire to it that it used to. I just can’t get all that worked up about it anymore; that emotion seems to have burned itself out. Life is about the now, the moment, and I’m enjoying my life the way it’s been dished up to me, single, alone, biking through the dark and lonely woods of Ohio, one moment face to the wind, next face to the dirt, but then, in the next, face to the sun. That’s pretty great.
