World We Imagine - Part 1

As a finance intern in the financial center of the world, I got the exhilarating experience of sitting atop a giant structure of want and worry. 

Ensconced in a $400 ergonomic chair, I got the ever-prestigious luxury of staring at a brilliantly-lit screen where nameless fortunes were made and lost every day. It was my job to talk about them, and tell companies how they could get a piece of the massive wealth pie that’s been baking in the American oven for the past 250 years.

While by no means was I a failure by any conventional measure, I felt as if I had failed part of myself. 

Music and creativity had always been central to my life growing up. I would spend hours at the piano writing songs to never be released, years in the garage drumming to perfect the art for art’s sake. But this was always somehow at odds with where society wanted me to go. I was a high achiever in school, had an insatiable appetite for learning, and was an all-around people-pleaser – all things that would “take me far” in life. 

No one ever really stops to ask, down what road do you care about going far?

Staring out the stainless windows of my workplace into the prestigious Manhattan skyline, I looked up to see the same beautiful morning sky I enjoyed as a musician growing up.

Enjoyment, beauty, love, and happiness are not exclusive to those who “succeed” by society’s definition of the word. Just writing that makes me uncomfortable, because I know it’s true. And I know I’ve made every decision in my life under the assumption that it wasn’t. 

Pursuing songwriting, or music generally, now, seems too little too late. I feel as though I’ve gone hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt for a re-education that’s eliminated my joy in the unknown and programmed me to be the best cog in any machine I’m in. I understand my love for music in theory, but in practice, it seems entirely unfeasible, illogical, and stupid to pursue. 

Telling people I have a six-figure job lined up is nice. But if I could rewrite my college years, I would’ve done the most stupid, illogical thing imaginable and done a performance major in some instrument. And then learned that instrument, and another, and another, and made music and enjoyed life with others that have always been free from the cage that success locks you inside.

I would’ve made songs, learned about the music industry, recorded and produced albums, and explored my creative side. After graduation, I would’ve been able to live wherever I wanted, spend time with whoever I wanted, and live my life to my own design.

Money would definitely be a lot more difficult. I’m not sure how my personality deals with uncertainty because it’s never had to before. And it’s the fear of not being able to support myself, of not having enough money to be “successful”, that’s kept my maximalist personality from ever being anywhere close to failure. What was a gift when I was young feels like a cage now that I’m older.

But the Taylor that built a community around him through college, and stayed with that community into young adulthood, would have at least that to show for his inner turmoil in the meantime. And the joy of relationships and togetherness that is inherent within a community bonded by music would keep him going until even society turns around and recognizes success in his choices (getting him paid). 

But not today. Another assignment in on time, another step in the march towards confinement in a world that smiles upon sacrifice.