Taking One's Self Seriously

At some point, I became aware that people don't take things as seriously as I do. Taking everything seriously never stopped me from being a complete clown, but, I have always taken what I do seriously. As a kid, I remember being baffled by people who bragged about "not taking themselves too seriously." If one doesn't take one's self --one's self -- seriously, what does he take seriously? I used to think.

Music, for instance...

I've watched my musical friends fall away...the ones who were musicians in high school, who smile fondly back at those days and sort of see me as a quaint reminder of the past because, as one former schoolmate put it when he ran across me at a gig, "[I] still do this nonsense." Most of them gave it up when they realized that people weren't really impressed that they walked around with drum sticks in their pockets of guitars strung across their backs. Some of them just went down different life paths.

I also have friends who kept doing the music thing, but only as a sort of casual diversion. They play for their kids; they sit with the acoustic on the back porch; they play for themselves -- which is great. To me, that is a sincere loyalty to the greatest art.

Then, there are the guys I work with: still willing to work hard; stay up late; load the car up; unload the car; practice all week; play their hearts out for three hours a night and then go back to their day job and their houses and kids and keep working hard. These are the guys who need music as an ongoing past of their lives, no matter how much it complicates things -- the guys who never got to the point where they thought that playing in a band is something one should "outgrow." In short: they still do it and they mean it.