Saturday, May 27, 2023
Conflicted About The Hustle...
In my own way, I have been always on the hustle: "to obtain by energetic activity." I come from what I think of as a long, unbroken line of hustlers. A line of folks who basically had to hustle their way thru life. A long line of working stiffs. Whatever bounty or $ that came down, appeared out of the ether as a result of back-breaking manual labor, pure luck & pluck, or lots of flailing about, and working up into a lather. Sometimes the "smoke & mirrors" paid off, but that was most likely attributable to the vicissitudes of our ratty "fake empire;" our natty, sprawling, all-consuming capitalistic, culture. If I really apply myself to skulling it out, I have to come to the realization that I have no clue why some of my ventures payed off, and most didn't. Most folks think I'm chill, and ZEN and the happiest, go luckiest Dude on the planet. That isn't how it goes inside my head. If I simplify, do a simple job for a simple buck, I can get along. But there is a burgeoning ambition swirling in my being. I have bigger dreams, want to accomplish great, sort of sketchy things, want to make things happen. But often I seem to have no hand. Maybe those dreams and ambitions are just hallucinations? Am I really lying to myself? Am I really just a simple being, doing simple things, and that's enough; showing up, doing what I do with very little resonance in the wider world. Maybe the hustle is also a hustle of myself? Not sure. Am I really that person who wants to conquer the world? Nah. I probably just want to live in it, do my creative, flow activities. I am happy sitting in my room listening to music, playing guitar, reading a book, writing a long rant. I might be happiest alone. Sure, I also have a band, write songs, make records, do shows. In the past I wrote plays, put them on, took one on the road to the Edinburgh Fringe Fest, but all my activities seem sort of marginal and ephemeral. I mean super, super marginal, and absolutely, totally ephemeral. Maybe that's just the reality of my life? Go along, and get along, on the margins. Maybe I never really was on the hustle. Maybe just fooling myself? Maybe no one makes anything happen, thing just happen, or not. "Whatever is gonna happen, is gonna happen, whatever isn't gonna happen, isn't gonna happen." Maybe that hustling idea is a lie in my space. One passed down from generations. Maybe best to "Go with the flow, Dude." Let the world come to you, or not. Let it come down, and if it doesn't come, oh, well, I suppose that's life.