working through the storm
One thing that amuses me about reality TV is the
ridiculous challenges they set people:
Design a couture outfit for female
astronauts that looks good on the runway and can withstand hard vacuum. You
have 6 hours, some kevlar, a butter knife and ziploc baggies provided courtesy
of ziploc corporation. The winning design will be featured on the first
suborbital flight from Virgin Galactic and the bonus for this mission is a
Toyota Prius. Go!
Then we get to watch
the people get incredibly stressed out because their lives are quite literally
at stake. It's the modern equivalent of the Roman coliseum. They're not in
danger of being eaten by lions, but some of them look like they would very well
take on a lion to get to that prize. Sometimes the challenges are really
ludicrous, but they're actually good preparation for life. It very rarely lines
up that you have a perfect shot at the target. We want to cry out, "but if I
had more time, if I had more money, if I had more something... I could make this
work". But in the end, it's only the people who make it work in the storm that
make it work at all, because it's always
uphill.
I'm thinking about this because
I'm in that place right now with this record. I don't have enough time and
people keep throwing new twists at me and demanding more things. I'm running on
about 5 hours of sleep a night and it's all I can do not to snap at people when
they ask for just one more thing. I have only so many precious days left till
the band leaves for tour and when I forget that no one wants to work on
valentines day it is a crushing blow to lose another day. The sleeplessness
exaggerates the stress and I get pissy over things like the fact that the word;
exaggerate has 2 gs.
But many records
ago, I realized that there's only 2 choices. Pack up and go home or get it done
under less than perfect conditions. I whine and complain about the storm but we
do the work as best as we can. When we turn it in, it's never what I wanted,
but it's the best we could do with the circumstances we were
given.
So when you find yourself working
in the storm or slogging through the desert, wail, cry out, beat your fists
against the wall. But never quit moving forward. Because life is always less
than perfect and the ones who learn to fly in the storm are the ones who learn
to fly in life.
now. back to the studio
for me.
I need to either clone me or
invent a time machine. ack!
Posted: Wed - February 13, 2008 at 11:05 AM
