Did we give up the ghost for the promise of financial comfort?
“We wanted to make it big, we wanted to follow all our dreams, we wanted music to take us away”…Not everything Wayward Sun did was quite so profound, but there was a sad prophecy that seemed to accompany that bridge… and it always resonated with me.
Did we give up the ghost?
I am an actor, and I’m good at it, and I still plan to “take my shot”.. but 30 is less than 2 years away, and suddenly it seems frighteningly like that shot will be hard to hit. As a “side career”, I’ve given 3 years of my life to nursing school – allowing me to pay my mortgage.. and I’m not alone. Lawyers, System Admins, Nurses, there are those here who had very different dreams 10 years ago.
Did we give up the ghost – or is there hope that somehow we’ll have enough money to be able to reemerge as players in our original field while the people who kept trying to grab that brass ring called fame.. starve as experienced waiters?
I’m not ready to give up the ghost just yet, but its shadow looms over me with every birthday.. every friend who decides its easier to take a “real job”.. and every friend who moves to L.A… and every friend who moves back because it never worked out.
Ghost stories always did scare me, this is no exception.
Galaxy Quest says it best
I think Galaxy Quest says it best…
That’s me. Sure, I’ve been six, seven… (counting fingers) no, more like a decade and a half between albums. But I figure at eighty, I’ll still be rocking as long as my fingers move.
On the other hand, I don’t feel like I’ve given up anything. I have a career that I love, a beautiful family, and made the intentional decision ten years ago that the “touring lifestyle” wasn’t for me. Kids and marriage were more important to me. Though my reasons have changed over the last couple of years, they are still my top priority.
But at least I’ll have my last kid out of my house by the time I’m forty-eight. Plenty of time to be a big star, and go on tour with my wife, if that’s what I want at that point 😉
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Big dreams
Millions of Americans are in the same boat with you, Justin. No matter what the career field, trying to get the dream job is often out of reach and for many, once they get that dream job, it’s not what they expected it to be. For example, my neighbor just graduated school to become a surgical tech. Her youngest child is 16 and this is a big accomplishment. While in school she was offered many jobs. Now that she’s ready to take the job, nobody wants her because she doesn’t have the experience. Just an example.
For Matt, he pursued his dream of music and took the required classes in college only to discover it was no fun to do it their way. He learned a lot and it has helped his talent a lot. Though his dreams have changed, he is still pursuing them from a different direction.
I don’t think you are giving up your dream, I think you are just finding another way to get there. Whatever it takes! Have fun and run with it.–
Christy
Buy it, in shiny metal boxes
Well Justin, as you know, I’ve gone through this myself recently. And I have no shame in saying that I *did* give up the ghost. I realized after 10 years as a professional musician that talent is only part of the equation. I have no doubt that I was good enough to succeed. But there are so many other variables, especially as a performer — whether you look right for what the director intended, whether you’ve worked with anyone the director knows, how far you’re willing to humiliate yourself for the purpose of furthering your career.
At the risk of sounding bitter and cynical, one of the things I realized was that it was a little silly, and perhaps a little selfish, to stubbornly hold on to my dreams when faced with reality. There are a ton of people out there who work full-time jobs that aren’t their dream-job, and simply take what used to be their “dream” and convert it into a hobby.
OK, I’m rambling. More later, perhaps. — Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor