been thinking...

(this is long. i think it's a good read, but it's long. don't say you weren't warned.)

so yeah, it's been 11 days since i had a post. i've stopped looking at sitemeter, because i know that all of my hits are coming from some picture i posted of an old lady kicking some dude in the junk. the thing is, i really haven't had much to say. and i've been busy with "real" work and trying to not be depressed about what i want to do, which is play music. it's not ALL that i want to do, but it's pretty much the whole enchilada, minus maybe the mole sauce and sour cream. get it?

we went to austin this weekend to see my family. we had a great time. an honest to goodness great time. i was able to spend a few minutes with my grandmother (i wish it could've been days, but i'll take what i can get), my great aunt (who's like a back-up grandmother), and my aunt (who's kind've taken over in some of the "mom" duties over the past few years). i also got to hang out for a while with my cousins and their kids - whom i treat like neices and nephews. this is where today's conundrum started.

my cousin's husband is in sales and does very well. big house north of town, disposable income, independently wealthy, kind've well. while he doesn't like what he does, he's happy. i mean truly happy. you can see it in his face and the way he acts around his wife and kids. he's got joy.

me? i don't make as much money ( i probably could) at my paying job, but i honestly can't make myself do the work any more than i do because i don't like what i do (stick with me, i'm going somewhere with this, i swear.). so i'm talking to the wife about this - how happy he is, compared to my relative misery - and i give her my theory:

i want to be great.

i don't mean that i want to be great at sales. i want to be GREAT. like ghandi. like springsteen, costello & the clash. like jim wallis (the founder of sojourners). like albert einstein. like andy warhol. the kind of greatness that people who don't know, know. i really mean that. i think that, whenever it's my time to die, if i don't feel like i've had an impact on people, not just a person here and there, but THE PUBLIC, that i will have not had a fulfilling life. like i won't have lived up to my potential. and i really do feel that i have that potential. maybe it's wrong-headed and maybe my self evaluation skills aren't what they ought to be, but i feel it.

the thing that i've been so conflicted and concerned about is: do i feel it in the same way that the fat girl who can't sing that you seen on american idol feels it? she thinks she's great. her family supports her.

but she sucks. not only that, she sucks and no one wants to look at her (you can fix one or the other, but not both).

what if "this" is all i'm supposed to do and be? what if this is it? if greatness isn't in my genes, in my divine plan, can i be satisfied with...normal? i've never thought of myself as normal. i tried to be normal in high school and felt like i was cheating. normal wasn't part of college. it's not part of me now. so what happens if it turns out that this is what i get? a non normal dude stuck with a normal life? a "corporate" life?

it scares the hell out of me and, being terribly frank, makes me sad to the point of fighting back tears some times.

what's worse is that this fear/realization/whatever is crippling my creativity, or at least i feel like it is. i'm trying so hard to be great and to be "not normal" that i'm blowing songs up before i let them begin.

i spend most of my time around people who have no aspirations to anything other than what they have in front of them - working their job until they die. in a corporate box. in the face of this i'm trying to keep my individuality and my sense of purpose (cue steve martin from the jerk. "i have a special purpose!!!). and my visions (or delusions) of greatness.

the wife posed a question to me that i've been struggling with, in light of my cousin-in-law's happiness:

would you trade greatness for happiness? if you could be great, but you wouldn't be able to have things you want and do the things that you do, would you want to do it? or would you rather be happy, but anonymous?

damn that woman and her questions...