2024-10-27
I saw super group L.S. Dunes play last weekend and at the end of their set, their vocalist Anthony Green said, "Make new things!" He also said after a song, "If you feel like you got something missing in your life, start a fucking band. You don't even have to be able to be good at playing anything." He glanced down and gestured to himself. "Look. Like, see?" It was baffling to me that he was so self-deprecating, because Anthony Green is huge in the emo scene, has a super distinctive voice, and is part of so many pivotal bands, but that's besides the point. Well... Maybe?
I've always, always, always been discontent with my consumption to creation ratio. I think a lot of it stems from an inferiority complex. I've always felt like creating is for other people. People who are more talented, cooler, and with actual original ideas. For some reason, I have it in my head that everything I have to make has to be amazing. Otherwise, why even try? I recognize it's not the most productive mindset. In fact, it's anti-productive: it leads me to not creating things at all.
This is something I've realized fairly recently. I've tried a few times to learn how to draw all over again and have been discouraged by my lack of progress and wanting to be good immediately. It was a big reason why I stopped trying to seriously draw. Which goes back to what Green said during the L.S. Dunes show. You don't have to be good at something to do it. What I got from his mini-speech was that making music, for him, was largely an emotional experience.
When I do have the impulse to make something, it is usually based on something emotional. Something inspires me. Or something happens and I have a reaction to it (like this post right now). I just dive my entire self into it without thinking (too much) about whether it's good enough. My mind is just focused on getting whatever I'm thinking about onto the page.
It's when I try to be more serious about something that it all falls apart. Practice? Trying to do something everyday? Being comfortable with not being the best? It's all really hard for me to do, and it results in me not doing anything. It sounds bad, but maybe I just need to take things less seriously. Do I really need to be good at something to do it? Maybe not so.