To my mind, I am a master of nothing. By itself, that sentiment reads incoherent and indulgent. It might be better understood as a feeling in the shadow of watching or listening to a master. I’ve just finished the And So It Goes documentary series about Billy Joel. This is a man so woven into culture that I found myself going “Oh yeah, that’s his song too,” for approximately 5 hours, somewhat floored by the idea that anyone could create that many hits. I googled how many songs he has, and it said 122. 33 have reached Top 40, 13 in the Top 10. That’s 27% and 10%, respectively.
What would it even mean if every 4th thing you created functionally had a global audience? Or every 10th thing you made, a massive plurality of people would want to see it, sing it, use it, or reproduce it? He took music lessons, but can’t really read music. He borrows and steals from his musical influences. He kept at it. He said, “Fuck You,” with a capital U, and he wrote how he honestly talked. He doesn’t even seem to really clock how impactful his music is or what it’s meant to stand up and represent it in the manner in which he has.
But a master is part of a tribe, a legacy. My mind went to Michael Jordan in thinking about who to compare mastery to where it’s so unequivocal. Who is Michael without The Bulls? Certainly everything human about him. Is Billy alive long enough to create what he has without his family?
When I reflect on my motivation as a child, perhaps the largest portion of it was being seen. It really seemed to matter that I was smart and did well in school. People talked about me, and praised me, and told me of all the jobs I’d probably have. I belonged, as the smart kid. I was something by moving fast and could be excused for being obnoxious or immature. I could “master” school, but “I” didn’t really have anything to do with it. It was safety, because I was afraid of consequences if I fucked up. It was compulsion, that still manifests as dreams in my 30s as panic I forgot to turn something in or won’t graduate.
Mastery is no substitute for what is missing. Billy Joel’s been married 4 times and struggled with addiction. Jordan’s a gambler. Whether someone’s running away from or straight through their trauma, you can’t argue with the results provided they survive and have an environment that allows for the churn.
I’ve trained myself to be considerably less compulsive. I don’t mourn it, but I miss it. I miss the energy of it. I miss the enthusiasm, even if it was bolstered by naivety. I miss feeling like things were achievable, and achievable in fantastic and magnificently large ways that no one else could see but me. I wink wink and nudge at that capacity sometimes, but I’m not embodying it. I’m often waiting for the motivation, the excuse, to tap into what would otherwise be a “master’s” bottomless well of compulsive creative energy.
I have a lot of confidence in myself. I don’t have a lot of confidence that I would keep it under control. I think I would latch onto things in an increasingly unhealthy way and restart what I assume to be the engine of alienation that’s gotten me where I am now. It’s never meant to be overstated, as I have friends, and one in particular I’ve been doing a ton with the last couple years. It’s more that, if you’re not willing to settle down, people stop really even talking to you. A master would be thankful for less distractions.
I feel foolish that I’ve waited until my 30s to be more “open” or “expansive” in my interests. Just as I want to see more of the world, try new foods, or meet people and engage in different cultures, we’re spiraling into a digital monoculture hellscape of isolated feeds and endless depression/anxiety cliches. When I didn’t have the headspace to truly see and take in the world I was a part of, I tuned in just in time to watch it flicker away. Are 1 in 4 of my observations and digressions something a quasi-global audience would dine on? Are 1 in 10 something they’d come back to again and again and weave into what remains of our culture? Could I achieve such a feat over attention at my own pace and on my own time?
I’ve been to some 360 concerts and comedy shows over the last 3 1/2 years. 360 times where an average of 3 or 4 acts are jockeying for the chance to be seen. Allegedly, they have something to say. It’s possible they don’t know how to be anything else besides performer. They might be driver by compulsion, complacency, or comfort. We criticize them too harshly at our peril. I’ve bought at least 100 shirts, plenty of stickers. I’ve shaken hands with what might be stars, or absolutely already are stars in their domains. Their obligation is the same as mine, to master their act. They’re smarter than me in trapping themselves into songs or a routine.
What do I do? I surround myself with instruments I play occasionally. I build a wood shop and show off when I cut grooves into a scrap board. I write, not for “publication,” A.I. often nags, but as a “raw” thing for niche plugged-into-whatever types who you’re certain unironically tout their awareness and cultural bona fides. When I sit for too long, I look for another show, or I rearrange the deck chairs. I notice, deeper*the cracks in anything I’m doing well or well enough and contort myself in service to inevitable* fallout.
I am a master of retention. I have and keep stuff. My feelings for more than 20 years are chronicled and one click away. My fruitless hopes zombie stomp across my potential to act every day. I keep the memory of the spite that sent me over every cliff I could find. I gaze upon the wishlist items, dumpster dives, and single-use clutter of my insatiable consumptive substitutes. I can hold my pee like I hate my bladder.
I’ve been throwing a lot away. I occupy a relatively small space, so clutter becomes apparent quickly. More than my desire to get rid of anything, I just wish there was room and that everything had its place. I wish the use I once had for something might renew, and the inherent value never forgotten. I think I have a hard time throwing out anything I’ve found useful. I have a hard time disassociating from things that have felt like “mine,” or represent something larger about me. It’s hard not to infer or conclude about the people in my life who I would have considered family and how little I must have registered to them.
I had hundreds of people in and out of my apartment and house in college. Some of them live 45 minutes away. I’ve had 25 different jobs and hundreds of coworkers. A handful linger on facebook. My graduating class had like 700 people in it, and today one of those classmates I’ve been to 21 shows with this year, with another 17 lined up. She had a brief hiatus for 8 or so years in Florida, but damn, the difference a single person makes
I wonder if the allure I feel, the false overwhelming security and confidence of “my crowd,” back then is the spell people are under by default. It’s their families that eat them alive. Their unchecked word choices and posture. Their neatly packed goals and accolades for following the expectations. It was something new and invigorating to feel like I belonged to something again in college. I thought of friends as an extension of myself. I wanted to do things for and with them in a way that felt like things mattered or spoke to our future together.
But I’ve always been on the outside. I’m watching and noticing patterns. If I had that feeling since birth? If it occupied a place where I was taking it for granted and it was just this unconscious place I “built” my life and relationships around, of course it becomes easy to ignore or discard what doesn’t conform. It wasn’t new to them, that feeling of belonging to something. They’re normal people. They belong by default.
How could I take it personally if we don’t even see each other as persons?
So you master your game. You write your song, and then “people” do whatever they want with it, interpret it, you, sideways, backwards, and in ways that obliterate you entirely. If you wrote it for you, it stabilized you, it made you laugh, it hit the frequency that one other person could hear, you’re golden. It’s all you “could have” done to begin with. It’s all you can do right now. I don’t blame people for not even knowing what they were lying about. I don’t blame myself for falling for it. If I’m going to discover a tribe where whatever I’m a master of might truly shine, it’s not going to be within the romance or nostalgia of a compelling and false premise. I still like the idea that I could turn living alone in a shed in the middle of nowhere into a spot that attracts the people I need.
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