If you don't like it, then why should I?
essays
Growing up, I always loved music. Some of my first memories are sitting in front of my mother’s stereo system that she had set up in the living room of our house, flipping through the catalog of CDs and spending hours blasting songs from Justin Timberlake’s Debut album Justified, Nelly’s Country Grammar (shout out the Show Me State), or one of her personal favorites, INXS.
I remember the long car rides with my dad on the way to my grandma who lived in Lexington, MO - a little small town about an hour east of Kansas City - and jamming along to his playlist that consisted of everything from the classic hits of Motown all the way to pop anthems of the 80’s, and watching the backdrop of the Missouri farmland pass by in my fathers old Ford Bronco before arriving and walking in on my older cousins watching 106 & park or running with them to the library so they could jump on myspace and listen to Soulja Boy Song - a true visionary by the way.
One of my favorite memories of all is downloading Kanye’s Late Registration on the first-gen Xbox console and having that album on repeat while playing Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland - literally a peak experience.
I could go on and on about all my favorite memories and how so many of them involved music, but what’s important is I found something I loved and had developed my own taste for, and a passion that eventually led me, somebody who had never even picked up an instrument prior, to collaborating with friends and other artists to take a stab at making our own songs. And I’ll tell you what, we’ve made a lot of not-so-great songs, to put it simply, but like anything in life, if you take enough swings, you’re bound to learn a thing or two.
I’d love to go on and on about how much the creative process has taught me about myself and my relationships with others, or how it has opened my eye’s up to the different forms of patience and how important timing is. Maybe I could even share thoughts on the delicate balance between raw instinct or feel and technique. However, I believe one of the most important lessons I have learned over time and gained self-awareness of is how essential it is to make the things that excite you and to create with a vision and purpose you are aligned with.
I realized some time ago, during the process of creating songs and showing them to friends, that the worst thing you can do is show a song and then try to explain it as it's playing, in hopes that it connects, instead of letting the work speak for itself. I realized that, when I did this, I was often operating from a place of insecurity and wasn't entirely proud of the work I put forth.
Even if I knew the foundation of the idea was good, maybe I rushed the process and got more excited about seeking immediate validation than about finishing the music and putting the work into it.
Sometimes, I have made something that was technically good, but I didn’t necessarily have a strong connection to it, an experience, which could just be a required friction anyone on a creative pursuit has to work through at some point in order to realign themselves and their purpose - if they so choose to acknowledge that friction in the first place.
I just knew that, in contrast to some artist I’ve been around who can’t wait to showcase their own songs and are very confident in doing so, I wanted to have that same pride and confidence in the work that I bring to the world, and despite not having a boastful demeanor, I want to feel secure enough in my ideas that I bring forth that I don’t feel that the possible external validation dictates the worth or value of the idea itself.
It seems like an obvious universal rule that whenever you are creating, you should make sure that, first and foremost, you are proud of the work you do and that you believe in it- because if you don’t, then why should I?
This doesn’t mean an idea will always be successful if you do, or that it won’t be if you don’t, but it’s a question I finally asked myself one day, and feel that it's an important one for anyone who’s creating to answer. Whether you’re writing a song, building a business or product, or creating any piece of art, the true reward most likely will not come from rushing the process or creating from a place seeking praise or validation. But from investing in each step and embracing the challenges, creating from a place of real passion and intention, and maintaining integrity and authenticity throughout, from beginning to end.