benparsons.com

last night i burned a copy of the “first draft” of a CD that i’ve recorded, mixed and mastered. this album is music written and performed in the living room of the Pink House by Anna, one of my housemates. you can hear un-mastered mixes on her music myspace here-
ANNA

So after a few minor tweaks to the first draft, and some ID tag editing (anybody know how to do that?) Anna will be able to make copies for her fans. it will be great.

I’m pretty happy about approaching the final product on this project for a few reasons. For one thing, this is the first music that i’ve recorded that is not mine. i’ve done some remixes of other people’s stuff, like This Morning Call, for example (see “this orange remix” on myspace) and that’s been cool, but this is different. i got to be there to do the actual recording, right there in our living room. **side note** i just received the files from This Morning Call to do another remix for them- the track is called “deserted” and it’s really good. give a listen if you haven’t already.

Another reason is that i absolutely LOVE anna’s music. i can’t exactly say what it is about it, but there is some kind of deep soul-ish thing that happens when i hear it. it connects with me on a level that most music does not. i’m proud of you anna, and i hope you are able to keep writing music for a long time!

It’s easier for me to produce this music for her and believe that it’s really well done stuff- easier than it is for me to do that with my own music. it’s difficult to tell if something that i’ve made from scratch is really “good” or not. you know, i assume that my own perspective is going to be pretty skewed on a project that i’ve built from the ground up. but i don’t feel that way at all with anna’s CD. i’m really proud of both anna’s and my work on this album, and i hope that you all are able to get a copy of it.

it’s been a few months in the making, and i’m smiling.

gotcha! this should’ve been titled “how in the name of william shatner can one possibly decide what they want to do/be with their life?!?”, because i have no idea.

ok, that’s not true. i have some ideas, but they’re sort of vague beginnings, and not real solution-types. they’re like the people you meet at a club who know everything about the band onstage, but have no social skills, so you don’t really want to hang out with them, but they’re still sort of useful to have around.

this is such a difficult question for me. it really confuses me that it’s so easy for some people. i was listening to AM talk radio the other day (it’s sort of a requirement, once you have kids) and the host, 710 KIRO’s Dave Ross, was talking about how he’d always known he wanted to be on the radio, ever since he was a kid. apparently there are old photos of him as a kid, with his little pretend radio studio and microphone set up so that he can interview people and talk to his audience. he’s really good at his job, too. by that i mean he’s not a one-sided, catch phrase tossing dumbass like many talk radio hosts. he said that his daughters tell him that’s so weird that he’s known his whole life, and that life is not like that for most people. i agree.

i used to think God would tell me what to do with my life. turns out he wont, which is ok because it also turns out i don’t want him to. i mean, how weird would that be? ok, if it was something really cool then i’d be down with it, but other than that, i don’t think so.

the question i’m mulling over here is- how does one do this?

some of the possibly helpful ideas i referred to above include:
-know yourself well enough to recognize your strengths, weaknesses, interests and abilities. this may require an intensive study of your life, family, and self
-be realistic, meaning don’t have unreasonable goals like “unless i make a gold record my first time out, i quit”
-along with that, be specific- don’t set super easy undefinable goals like “i want to be a good dad”- i mean, that’s just dandy, but how do you know if you’ve accomplished it or not?

although i’ve done the above somewhat, i’m still lost as to what else needs to happen for me to figure this out.to be more specific, let’s take my music as an example. i like making music most of the time, although i don’t like performing it as much, as i usually feel really stressed out when performing. i’ve spent a chunk of money making it possible for me to create some quality stuff, but how do i know if this is “it”?

there are a bunch of ways we usually decide this- things like: do others enjoy it and give me praise for it? does it give me joy/life personally to do it? does the time seem to “fly by” when i’m doing this thing? can i make a living doing this? will this get me recognition/prestige/groupies? will i “make a difference” by doing this?again, these questions may not be asked by everybody, but i think they are asked by a lot of us. to continue with my music example, i’ve found people’s reception of my music to be somewhat restrained. [ok, right now, anyone reading this who thinks they should "encourage me" by telling me how great my music is, in order to help me "feel better" please don't. that's just annoying.] i’d say that, by my count i only have 1 or 2 “real” fans, and a bunch of “family/friend” fans. (i define a “real fan” as somebody who listens to some similar music, and likes mine. friend/family fans are people who like it, but mostly because of their relationship to me). i may be underestimating a bit, but not by much. please don’t use my “1500 myspace friends” as an argument here- about 95% of those are other bands just trying to get their name out there. *note* this isn’t a pity party, i’m just doing some processing and i want your help.

so- not a lot of people really dig it, i’m not that great at it (after around 4 years of producing), and i just don’t get that much out of it anymore. it used to be a real creative outlet for me that i was excited about, but it’s become somewhat of a chore. i know that this happens with anything we do, but still…

for me- the question is: should i keep producing music or not? i put lots of time, energy, soul and money in to it, and don’t get much back. maybe i should be doing something else with my time.

if i went by the word of people who know me, i would become a writer. that’s the thing that i get the most positive feedback on (this may be a surprise to you, considering the sloppiness of this blog!) when i used to do public speaking i also got a pretty good amount of positive feedback from that, but i find it quite draining physically and emotionally.

moving along- i picked up a book of short stories by Chuck Palahniuk from the library called Stranger Than Fiction. this guy rules, in my opinion. he’s an amazing writer. he wrote Fight Club, one of my favorite books/movies ever, as well as a few other bestsellers. he’s talented, raw, powerful and successful. how did he decide to become a writer? how did he slog through the first however many years of making NO MONEY for his work, to becoming a sought-after writer of both fiction and non-fiction, interviewer, and biographer?

i bought a nice set of art pens the other day. i bought them because i wanted to try out making art with ink instead of just watercolor. i haven’t tried them yet, but how much time should i spend finding out if pens are going to be a good medium for me or not?

do you get my drift?

i want to know what to focus on. i don’t want to be doing a C+ job on 10 things forever, but at the same time i have such a difficult time deciding.

help!
i leave you with a picture from a recent staff meeting. feel the mood?

I’d like to share a bit about my friend and housemate Anna Lenau.  She is a student at S.U. and a singer/songwriter of some seriously powerful material.  Here is a picture of her holding our older daughter, Jaya.  Anna and i recorded some of her songs in our living room about a week ago, and i’ve finished engineering a few of them, which can be heard hereI’m happy with how the first two tracks turned out, and should be finishing 4 more in the next few weeks. I don’t know about you, but i’ve been finding that engaging in creativity is VERY important to my well being.  it doesn’t seem to matter what the  ”content” is either.  in the past few weeks i have been able to do electronic music production (as well as the project i mentioned above), bicycle mechanics, graphic design/stencil printing, making a coat rack for our home (i call it the Space Cactus), a little “sculpture project” (untitled, but I LOVE IT!!  i’ll have to post a photo soon), and a bit of home decorating.  that sounds like a lot, but creating/building is SO energizing for me, i pretty much just fly right thru the stuff.  it gives me more energy just to participate in making/improving something.  even when it’s in the form of a conversation.  It might sound funny to make such a big deal out of this, but it really is huge for me.  This brings me to a thought i’d like your feedback on. If we are God-followers, most of us expect to represent this God’s characteristics in our lives. We believe that God’s qualities will show up in our lives (though not necessarily instantly), and that it is up to us to live out these characteristics. I can not say “i follow Jesus, but i don’t really care to act like him, or figure out what he’s like”.my point is- to me it’s completely obvious that a large part of God’s character is creativity. it seems like he likes to make stuff, and not just for pragmatic/functional reasons, but for beauty or mystery, story-telling and friendship, excitement or just pure enjoyment. if he does this, do we? do we see it as one of our “spiritual disciplines” to be creative? if my premise is correct, then to make something (be it useful or not, beautiful or not, etc.) is to act like this God.Here’s a more concrete example– many times when bringing people down to the Bread of Life Mission to volunteer there, people would remark that it felt natural, energizing or just “good” to serve. I’d usually explain that they felt that way because that’s one of the things God created us to do- to serve others. we don’t do it much, so when we actually DO serve, we notice those encouraging feelings.I think it’s the same with creating, but people often want to separate creativity as some type of gift that only a blessed few have. i disagree. would you say that about service? that only a few are “blessed” with being able to serve? you might see that some are particularly good at it, or enjoy it more than others, but you wouldn’t call it a gift, would you? why do we call creativity a gift? (of course, it is a gift, in the sense that everything we have is a gift from God) but my point is you are not exempt. if your God is creative, so are you. perhaps you have not discovered how to do this, or are not yet comfortable, but we didn’t let that stop us from learning to pray did we? (well… actually i don’t pray very much, so maybe that’s a bad example).what do you think? is creativity a spiritual discipline which God intends for all of us to participate in, in order to enjoy Him, and this life, fully?