I'm not sure what takes precedence these days, creating or improving. It's kind of a chicken or the egg situation because one will always lead to the other.
I'm happiest and most inspired when I start creating, while always looking to improve upon what I've done before, that's an always in the music sense. On a personal/human level, to be frank, I used to be a piece of shit. I did a lot of things in life that I'm not proud of and it took me a long time to fully realize my own actions. A large part of it came from my upbringing and some personality aspects that are often found in trauma victims, so there was always a scapegoat I could, and did, fall back on that relieved me of responsibility for my own actions. In my late 20's (the knowledge of Saturn's Return had a lot to do with this) I became highly aware of who I was as a person and did not like what I saw. I was very manipulative, often using anger to manipulate a situation, I wasn't truthful in many situations and I didn't appreciate the good things I had in life.
I had a rubber band effect with all that once coming to those conclusions and started to really beat the hell out of myself mentally. It took me a good 6 years to stop torturing myself over my past. Thankfully, that's entirely behind me now and I'm quite appreciative of the person I turned out to be. I still have a day here and there where I'll be quite hard on myself, but it'll be for something stupid like, "You didn't build this pedalboard the way you set out to, you've let yourself down again." instead of "You threw a plate across the kitchen at work and smashed it on a wall, nearly injuring several people and causing the manager to throw out $5,000 worth of food." (that exact incident was the catalyst for me to start improving my behavior).
Because of the leaps and bounds I've made as a human, I'm always inspired to keep pushing ahead to see what else I can do. Musically, I'm always surprising myself by creating an entire song out of thin air and having zero clue that I was capable of writing it or even knowing where the hell it came from and it gets me fired up to move on to the next song. That's why the album I've been writing has taken me 3 years, I keep doing better than what I did before.
Excellent post, thanks for the honesty and fwiw it sounds like you’ve come far as a person by leaps and bounds as well man
and what is more important these days, as we have created everything there is almost, in a way, all we have been doing since the 1950s(atomicage) has been mostly improving
it takes even a genius to stand on the shoulders of the giants in the past to continue on the good work in whatever respective field they come from , and I think where we have come, it has becomemore importantto gain a deeper understanding of the world and our creations and subsequent impact,rather than running on the next “discoverY”
People have lost Their humility and reverence- the humility one should possess towards the self as an extension of nature and all others, and reverence for the derivation of any “discovery “ one wishes to claim credit for
in a sense, we are all a reflection of nature and each other, and all are a part of the universe (if you want to call the totality of this package God I have no issue with that, nor can I personify said I infinity) so if we return to nature, as this virus is forcing us to, then the solutions will present themselves
its just the nature of a bountiful, endless universe.
To me all things are inspiring in their own way, if you think about everything that had to go into its making in a certain way in order for you to see something or someone in their current form.
Whether it is the mighty rock formation formed from a bubbling mixture of the correct chemical components, forced up through the crust of the earth with the proper amount of tectonic force, and honed by massive glaciers, wind, rain, ice wedging, and animal activity, or the evolutionary process, environmental factors, and animal activity that make a tree near my house appear the way it does right now to me, it's all truly awesome.
To me, it's not only women and the natural world that I find inspiring, but the little things that most people probably don't notice and take for granted that are truly amazing when you think how they came to be.
For example, take the humble set screw that keeps most modern door knobs in place around the world, whether in US, Europe, South America, or Asia. Someone had to make a determination that a fastener of this design was needed for this task and design it. Someone had to design the machine that was capable of producing the fasteners in volume and dimensional tolerance to be effectively and economically used in the manufacturing design of the door knob, The components of the machine also had to be designed and manufactured in such a way, that producing the part repetitively was possible. Then people had to extract and manipulate the raw materials of nature to make all that happen. All the people who came up with these things had to disseminate their knowledge so that they could afford to live and scale the passage of knowledge so that it didn't die with a single person. To me, that is also very beautiful to ponder.
I use the set screw example with my teams to show them the most humble of components makes an impact in their lives when it's not there (in the demo, I remove the set screw, let door knob fall to the floor, and ask a volunteer to open the door without it). I explain there is beauty in everything if you take the time to learn about the efforts and knowledge used to make it happen.
I also think the small things make ALL the difference, like if the devil is in the details then gimme a one way ticket, (on the highway to hell!!!!!! AC/DC )....
But I get your point, and I totally agree with people missing the amazing miracles of the mundane
Actually people take impermanence for granted, otherwise we would appreciate life and what we have so much more, and in doing so, I believe humanity would naturally have more respect for each other and most importantly that humility and reverence ^
One of the most inspiring moments of my life was when I first visited the great pyramids in Egypt. To sit in that taxi bus and then slowly see the pyramids rise up over the houses until they dwarf everything. And then you step out and take them in and you realize that humans built these. That if humans with primitive tools but with human ingenuity built these massive stone structures then there is no limit to what we can do today.
But I've always found human architecture to be inspiring and worth visiting. But I come from a country which basically has no nature. The Netherlands is entirely man made, even its wild parks. Maybe if I lived in a country which had same actual awe inspiring nature I would appreciate it more. And of course the ladies are always inspiring. I once wrote two songs when the news came along with my favorite news reader and I was just mindlessly playing the guitar.
totally! When I saw them I was very young, and I didn’t appreciate it as much, though I did go wild there, going in and out of the pyramids, but it was the outside That I later realized was the true wonder, seeing that man made wonder of perfect symmetry and near permanence in structural integrity, against the arid desert sunscape .... man, what an inspiring memory...thank you!
