What music means to me / How I get out of unproductive mindsets || ...

What music means to me / How I get out of unproductive mindsets || ... | Ecency

This thought process was very much inspired by this Andrew Huang video that I watched a long time ago. He talks about how no matter what he was doing, whether he had work or school or family obligations, he always used any spare time he had to make music and get better at making music. He also talks about how music is the most beautiful thing to him, and he struggles to really convey in words his feelings towards music, whether that's "Top 40 garbage" or anything he's listening to. And I feel that on a deeper level. I've always been a gregarious guy. Talking to everyone, capable of holding the center of attention. But towards the end of college I started to change. I no longer felt like I needed to be the "life of the party" or really make conversation just for the sake of it. I found that I had acquired a kind of learned helplessness, where I was going out of my way to be more social in the hopes that a higher quantity of social interactions would have to, statistically, raise my chances of meeting someone who shared my interests and passion for music and film as deeply as I do. But it never came. I tried desperately to change the people around me to get into music the way I was, talking about it, showing off new music equipment or techniques I was learning. But it never caught on. And I struggled with this like crazy. My whole life I'd felt like I'd been taught and told about one way to live. That happy people are always surrounded by people and able to connect with anyone. But I found that to not be the case. I got exhausted by trying and praying that the next person I met would be someone I could connect with on a deeper level, only to be let down. And this video reinvigorated me to stop thinking like that. I waste so much time being sad that I can't find people who want to grind on this stuff as hard as I do. Who don't have a fire within to make music and film like I do. Well fuck it. At this point, I'm just going to take it for what it is. If I have to be alone to pursue my interests, then fuck it I'll do it. If I don't try to talk to people when I'm in social situations, it's whatever. I'm living my life the way I want to. I don't need to prove anything to anyone. Music holds a fundamentally deeper place in my life than anything else has. There's no real judgment, no real rules, no real limits. People are inherently limited, but creativity is limitless. So I'm just going to dive head first into the limitless space that is creativity and stop worrying so much about how I'll be perceived. I am different. I love myself the most when I'm truly being me, when I'm immersed in my interests. And I no longer need to justify it to anyone. Not even to myself.

The Andrew Huang Video on Motivation: