The Importance of a Center

I call what I do “art shit.” It’s not meant to be negative or dismissive, I just don’t want to be precious about things, you know? When I was younger I was overly precious about things, overly pretentious. Now I look at writing and music as simply stuff I do just like someone good with computers codes or someone who knows their way around a wood shop makes tables. Art shit.

I have a gig tomorrow night here in Portland. Just me and two guitars. I play music at least an hour a day. Writing? I have a few projects “in progress.” Changing the world? Yeah, I’ll get to that…or at least changing my world. I have no idea why this is still going on, working normal jobs. There has to be a reason, right? My days off I just need time to decompress…and I feel guilty for doing that. Maybe you can relate. I need a “talent manager,” someone who can guide my writing and music career; I research this, hit dead end after dead end and the frustration builds. First world problems.

The focus has been on music more than writing, that has been the center of my personal art shit experience lately. I have a few songs I need to record at my little home studio…and I have a few writing projects I need to work on. It confuses me: I am even more artistically driven than I was in my 20s and a lot more skilled to boot…and yet I can’t survive off it. I’m not talking get rich, I’m talking survive. There has to be a reason, right? I don’t have any hair to pull out so I have to be philosophical. 

One has to be always open to signs. I was in one of my bars a couple of nights ago reading a bio on Lou Reed. Over the PA came some rap tune that samples “Walk on the Wild Side.” A sign, right? I took it as a sign that I am on the path I am supposed to be on. So, I just keep doing what drives me…art shit, you know? I practice music, work on stories, I follow the path it seems I am supposed to follow.

My perception is that a lot of us are bug eyed and wringing our hands right now, anxious about the future, anxious about getting old in a world that is becoming more capricious and harsh as the months and years pass. I guess all you can do is what feels right, indulge in life’s simple pleasures, learn to appreciate things maybe you took for granted in the past. I keep my apartment really clean—I think it’s because I appreciate the whole stick and brick thing, having a real kitchen and indoor plumbing. You laugh but I lived out of a van on and off for four years. Nowadays, I push a button and a machine makes coffee. On the road it’s dealing with the cold and dark to fire up the propane stove outside and all the steps involved back then. I have heat in my apartment and a bathtub; man. that’s luxury after years of privation.

The center of my life is art shit. It’s what centers me and there is the understanding I am fortunate in that. Some people don’t have a center, some people rely on medication for the anxiety most of us are feeling these days. We work too hard, we’re forced to move too fast, to live lifes of haste removed from nature. I wish I had an answer for us, I really wish there was an easy solution, but in the end I’m just some middle aged guy who spends way too much time alone and is focused on doing art shit...

Curious about my books?: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Izaak-Diggs/author/B00EG7OKUY?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true