most of the time these days
i just stay home
and keep to myself
so i can focus on my art
which in my case means practising my instruments
or working on new music
writing, recording, mixing, producing
i also love to read books on all kinds of topics
to understand the world better
watching great movies
cinema has always been a great merger of different art forms
my favorite movies are usually with great soundtracks
and more character driven and less of the mindless spectacles
we get a lot nowadays
been rewatching some of my favorite films from growing up
some of them haven’t aged that well or maybe they were never that good
i was just a dumb kid who wanted to be entertained
i was a late bloomer intellectually
although i had read 1984 and sophie’s world in high school
it wasn’t until dawkins god delusion where i really started to get into
all that pop academic stuff… but i was still looking for something to believe in
dabbling with all kinds of ideologies
but music and film always co-existed with that
and of course throughout all this i was writing my own songs
and filling notebook after notebook which are now stacks high
towers of poetry
i think it was a good way to just keep memories
others have photo albums, i have zero photos
my photos are in the forms of notebooks and songs and recordings
i still do that and it’s a little crazy to read some of my old stuff
it partly makes me cringe but occasionally there is some stuff that blows my mind
and i think wow what the hell, i actually had that insight already then
and then i realize my songs are often way ahead of me
it’s like they are predicting the future or some ideal dream version of myself
someone i can never quite live up to
i wonder if other songwriters feel the same about their art
man i would’ve loved to talk to someone like Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison or Elliott Smith
i always felt so connected to these guys
i think they were too sensitive for the fame
i would’ve probably killed myself too
who can deal with that kind of pressure when you know you are already different
when you know that something is wrong with this world
and you just wanna create music and then suddenly they make you into some kind of icon
they asked jim morrison once to describe himself
and he said “i see myself as an intelligent, sensitive human, with the soul of a clown
which forces to to blow it at the most important moments.”
they put you on magazines and you are treated like this object
celebrity culture is so fucking sick man
people are so dumb to think these people are somehow different
your plumber and accountant and supermarket clerk
are exactly the same as any celebrity
sure some people are really talented but there are lots of celebrities without any
and there are really kind people in all walks of life
some just don’t have that drive and ambition to become these attention whores
they don’t have the kind of childhood insecurities
that i think most famous people have especially in america
so they created this whole hollywood cigarette smoking fashion thing
and it still prevails even though we all know it’s complete horseshit
even i bought into that and still do to some degree
i am a prisoner of my own mind and product of my environment
do i have a choice? do i create the world i live in constantly?
i think it might be true that living in the present is actually living in the past
if you wanna break free from all that you gotta live in the future man
and then the future becomes your present
it is something you actually create fresh and not just continue your old patterns
echoes of dreams that were programmed into you
from your parents, culture, school and the media
who do you really want to be?
what do you really want?
i don’t think it’s that easy to answer those questions
when you understand that YOU as an identity and personality
is not as free as you might think
i think we have free will and we don’t at the same time
it is your choice if you want to go with the flow or create your own
or perhaps a little bit of both
you have the freedom of will
but do you have the freedom to choose?
and who makes THAT choice?
you don’t wanna fight life too much, that will exhaust you
you’ll end up in the swamp with the alligators
and me
at least for me as an artist, it’s useful to have routines and discipline
this frees a lot of time and energy which i can then use for my art
this is why i mostly stay home these days
it’s fun to go wild a few times a year
but i just don’t wanna do it that often because the hangovers kill me
and i need to be alone so i can have the calmness
to prepare for the chaos
to fight alligators when they get take over my fucking mind
alligators
alligators
alligators