Originally posted on Facebook HERE
This is the 302nd time I’ve done one of these posts. Almost every week for well over five years now. Crazy to me. The first one was July 4th, 2017. I had tried blogging several times before and never stuck with it. I’m not even sure I had a regular weekly post in mind when I did “Looking Out My Back Window” post #1. But here we are 5 1/2 years later and I’m still doing them. Sometimes life will just morph into something without us really thinking much about it. Or, you do something for fun, maybe here and there, not really thinking much will come of it – and next thing you know it’s got some crazy success. In that regard, one of my favorite stories involves the local band The Glam Band. Started years ago by some friends of mine not ever seriously thinking anything would really come of it at all, and at some point they just took off and are now one of, if not the most popular band in the state of Wisconsin. It’s a crazy story best left told by one of the original members, so I’ll leave it at that. And I remember a conversation I had years ago with another bass player friend of mine when I was screwing around doing a punk bubblegum band as a side project – he said “sometimes those side projects you do just for fun become really successful over time”. And maybe that’s an important thing for us to be aware of. Doing what we love for no other reason than we love it. Did The Grateful Dead start their band because they looked at where the US economy was at the time and commissioned a market analysis that figured out the best way to become multi-millionaires was to start a jam band? I think not. They played because they loved it. What if they had never became famous?… it wouldn’t have mattered. They would have just kept playing… for the love of it. Because when they played their hearts sang – even if nobody else ever came, watched, bought records… it was their passion. We so often put the kibosh on something before it ever gets going because our heads tell us we’re not good enough, or nobody will care to see that… and deny the world the opportunity to make that decision for themselves. My current band The Fusion Project is something I dreamed of putting together for years… probably since the late 70s when jazz/rock fusion had its heyday… and it finally came together back in 2020. We do it for fun. It’s not really “music for the masses” at all. But we love it. It’s a creative outlet. And we’ve been nominated for three WAMI (Wisconsin Area Music Industry) awards this year. Crazy. And I write every week… now it’s just part of my routine… because it’s good for me to work through everything life throws at us. And this is one way I deal with it. I love getting feedback from the people who follow these posts, buy the books, etc… but I’d keep doing it even if there was nobody watching. Because I love it. We need things like that in our lives – something we do not for money, not for recognition, not for anything or anyone else but ourselves. Running… yoga… meditation… playing piano… writing, painting… and every once in a while a passion will become more than we ever expected it to be… that thing in the back of your mind you’ve talked yourself out of a thousand times before?… maybe re-examine it. Think “is this something that I would love to do, enough to start moving in that direction right now?”… does that sound exciting? Take a small step then, and maybe do something sheerly for the fun of it… you never know where it might take you 🙂
