'Reason for Not Sleeping

I have found that when I am concentrating, focusing, or calming down, it helps to listen to Rob Dougan’s Clubbed to Death. (If you don’t recall such a song, then you might want to go buy it to hear it, or consequently watch the movie The Matrix. It is the song playing in the scene when Morpheus is showing Neo around the Matrix program.) The song title is deceiving. There is nothing violent about the song. Instead I would say that it was probably so named to signify the silence and peace, the elation of leaving this realm and elevating to something lighter and greater which one obtains at after death and not necessarily the process of being clubbed.

I am tired as I write this, but I can’t sleep. There is too much on my mind and I suppose I haven’t compartmentalized all my thoughts accordingly, and what’s happening now is that they are flying and whooshing all over my mindspace, almost haunting me in their disorganization. Therefore, when that happens, I usually pull out the good ol’ laptop and journal, or write a blog, which has become pretty much the same thing these days.

Of course, because my priorities are skewed as a human being, nothing keeps me up at night more than my premature music career; not many relationships, not many enemies, not much family, not much anything keeps me up at night but work. This can mean two things, (1) I am a career-obsessed and self-involved individual or (2) my personal life is in order. For your information, I would say that it is the latter, although the former is quite true too at times, but only at certain times, unlike the mostly satisfactory state of my personal life. (sounds like the lady doth protest too much.)

Anyway, other than that which was expressed a few days ago, I guess I am feeling a certain restlessness and an itch, and I am trying to figure out how to relieve myself from it. I can’t sleep these days ( a problem which had been resolved) because I keep thinking about my music about how I want to be honest about it without damaging my career prospects. I guess, this is an old conundrum of mine, and in the past I solved it by being defiant and saying that people must like me for me, and nothing else. So, I think I will revert to that again to keep me at peace. With that said, I guess I have solved that problem. I create music for myself, first and foremost. It must please me first. Then I share it with all of you with the hopes that you will like it as much as I like it. I only hope that we’d appreciate the same thing, I do not do more than that by influencing you more than is healthy by losing myself in order for you to find me, because how could you find me if I am lost? Therefore, I will not bend my style or preferences because I am trying to be liked. It sounds ungrateful (and a little stupid as far as the earthly popularity contest is concerned) but it is the truth and I apologize for any offense caused. The fact is that I am happy with myself… mostly…

Let’s move to another thing that’s keeping me up at night.

My voice or the quality of which, is bothering me. I suppose it is the age old insecurity of the performer, who relentlessly nitpicks and prods at his/her talent until a little room for improvement becomes a mountain of a problem. That was me comforting myself. The truth is that I believe that I listen to myself objectively and what I hear is real, and what I hear is troubling. There is a great lot that could be improved with my voice, and it is no excuse that I hear a lot of accomplished artist with worse voices than I (jealousy makes you nasty). That doesn’t matter even if I sometimes use it as an excuse to remain as I am. The fact is that, I have to be better than many to achieve the things I would like to achieve. Mediocrity is not an option and I seem to be dealing with a mediocre voice. There is good news though, as I have mentioned before, since I stopped smoking, my voice has been improving and getting better and stronger, so who knows what I’ll sound like after two years of not smoking, since I have only been clean for a year and 3 months or so? Even so, the next step then should be voice training, isn’t it? So, that goes in my list of things to do one day. I doubt that I will do it any time soon though, but I am seriously considering it.

The next thing that keeps me up at night is the people that do not treat me the way I desire or deserve to be treated. I tend to get a few humans who take me for granted. There is of course no blame placed on them as anything that occurs to me is likely something that I allowed to happen, because as dicey as it sounds, we do teach people how to treat us. So, I do feel bad to have taught people to treat me in a lesser and undeserved manner. Yes, I tend to make people feel that I am dispensable and it is my fault because I do simply have childlike appreciation and wonder for people, giving all that I have got until one day I wake up realizing that I am left with nothing. I suppose this is one of those incidences, and so I am taking charge and I suppose I am now teaching a new lesson. The new lesson is: I COME FIRST. Selfish as that may sound, it is self-preservation which takes place when people have taken more from you than they should have taken, or similarly, when I have given more than I should have given.

On the other hand, I have a larger number of people who love and appreciate me to a level that shocks yet pleases me. These are the people who taught me how I should be treated, making it so difficult to accept anything below the love with which they shower me constantly. I am highly grateful to these people for teaching me such a valuable lesson, and I am constantly striving to show them the same appreciation so as not to lose them as those who have lost me through negligence.
With that said, I feel much better, and I think I might finally sleep.

Oh dear, the sun is rising.

All I needed was to write it down. Now the question is, will I share this on a blog or will I leave it as my private musings? It should be private, for crying out loud, but... Tis the season for anarchy, fa la la la la, la la, la la

Sincerely,

Veronnica Wolpendz

P.S. This is the last of the over-shares, I promise.