2026-03-30
Divine Liturgy was pretty good yesterday, thanks for asking.
Even though it's only been about 48 hours since my last entry, it feels like it's been much longer. It really has gotten to a point where my life is so enmeshed with this project that I feel strange when I don't write an entry for the day. I don't know exactly how I feel about that, but I think that regardless of whether or not I have this project, I'd still be writing. A lot of folks have gotten into furious note-taking, and I think that's a cool way to do it too. However, the stakes of putting this online for anyone to read give me an edge, and it's one that I don't take lightly.
I was watching some videos this morning of saxophone players that I used to know back in high school. Back then, playing saxophone was the most important thing to me. In the same way that writing here gives me a chance to express myself and quiet the voices and melodies constantly in my head, music was my outlet back then. Whenever I'd practice or play a gig, there was a feeling of satisfaction I'd have afterwards that really kept me going. There's always been a lot of bullshit that I've had to deal with in life; whether it be conflicts with other people or shitty sets of circumstances, there's always been a lot on my mind. Not to mention back then as a teenager, music helped me quell my hormonal spikes.
I had fallen out of playing music when I finished high school. On top of not achieving my goal of making the all-state jazz band, I also saw the path ahead for a burgeoning saxophone player, and it looked bleak. There's not really a large market for professional saxophone players, and with music education as an industry, there's a high saturation of talent. Because of that, the main way that a professional would make a living is through teaching, which was something I had no desire to do. I was a bit of a rarity as a student: precocious and with an insatiable appetite for learning the craft. I knew that as a teacher, most of my students wouldn't have the same fervor I did. As I would've progressed in that career, I saw myself becoming resentful.
Beyond that, most professional saxophone players are basically the same person; when I watched those videos of guys I went to school with, I felt vindicated. Those guys, even ten years after high school, sound the exact same—playing the same twenty licks or so every song, doing the same trite jazz combo gimmick. I was getting tired of it by the end of high school, so if I found myself still trying to do that shit ten years later, I'd probably want to die. That was one thing I hated about jazz education: there's no sense of innovation. Everyone wants to sound the same, be the same, and do the exact same thing for the rest of time. When I'd work with teachers, they'd always tell me I'd have to constantly be transcribing solos and studying the greats. I think that's a good use of time, but there are significant diminishing returns in it after so long. You know who my favorite person to transcribe was? Myself. I always had melodies in my head I wanted to work out on the horn, so most of my practice involved singing the melodies and trying to get them to sound how they did in my head.
That was the main gripe I had with all those jazz guys back then: it was all cerebral for them, and they didn't have an ounce of creativity. Any creativity they did have was always pretentious art-house stuff, which was a product of going to a prestigious music school. All those guys could muster was derivative and banal, and the pushback that I'd receive from teachers and peers alike was intensely frustrating. More than likely, those guys probably presumed me to be arrogant, and I think there's some truth to that. I can tend to have an I-know-better-than-you attitude sometimes, but for me, music was my primary emotional and existential outlet. In a sense, I felt obligated to protect its purity. I didn't want attention, but to take my creativity to its greatest extent. Any attention I received was a byproduct of that, but especially back in the day, there were certainly behaviors that were interpreted as status-signaling.
And that's true. I was status-signaling, but not out of a place of egotism or arrogance. There was a sense of playfulness in it that gave me something nothing else could. I remember so many days in the band hall or at friends' houses—we'd just jam for a while. I could feel the electricity pulsing through everyone, see the joy in their eyes. It was a feeling I haven't experienced since, and I don't know if I will again. I don't want to chase it like some kind of high, though; people move on, circumstances change. That time should be left where it is. I will be eternally grateful for those experiences, and I hope that the people I impacted keep that same joy in new ways.
It's what I try to do here. I haven't busted out my horn in about a year or two, but I don't feel too bad about it. I've given myself a new craft, and the novelty in it is still shining bright. It's been said that the best time to learn what your career and life pursuit should be is in your twenties. That's why this time is marked by self-exploration and discovery. Feeling lost is a normal and acceptable thing. Many in my age group feel dejected from life and have periods where they give up. That's what happened to me, and I used to feel horrible about it—that I irrevocably wasted precious time. But looking back, I understand that it was all part of the process. Giving up is a normal thing too. Every day is an opportunity to stand back up and face that unknown, to keep exploring.
I know now I've been given something special, and I'm not going to waste it. I'm taking every single day and using it to refine this voice I have, to keep channeling that divine essence that pulses through me from brain to fingertip.
Chaucer said it best: "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne."
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