::

"There's a way about you that just seems right surrounded by drums, and you come alive to battle it."

i understand what they meant. and yeah, maybe it was just a nice little compliment, and that is all. but maybe not. it almost seems to me as if there is something more to it. as if, in that moment, they had a lucid picture of my mind and my heart and my emotions. like they took a polaroid of my soul. and, it just so happened that - as they saw it - my soul was doing its happy dance, for lack of a better term. and it's true. most of the time when i'm playing drums, i'm happy deep down. it just feels good, and i can focus on that one solitary task (which is actually quite complex and anything but solitary), and it will be enough to distract me from whatever else is going on in my life. unless of course there's a crowd of people watching. but that's not the important part. the important aspect of this observation is that the battle - the maelstrom - that they saw in that instant, isn't happening for me anymore. i mean, it happens every time i go into the basement and jam for half an hour. but then i get done, cool down, and it's gone again. i feel the same way when i'm working on cars, or running sound, or making a recording. it's fun, exciting, exhilarating. it's a challenge for me to conquer. it's a puzzle that i find absolutely fascinating. i need to figure out how it ticks... how to fix it if it's broken... what i could do to make it work better, easier, faster, louder, stronger... you get what i'm saying. then and only then am i truly happy, truly satisfied, fully energized and motivated and ... alive.

and what i want - what i REALLY want more than anything - is to feel that passion in all aspects of my daily life. and it seems that i barely feel it at all anymore. like someone just took all of my energy away. or maybe it's there, but i can't seem to reach it when i need to. it absolutely baffles me.

okay, saying all aspects of my daily life is probably misleading. if i was that excited about taking out the trash, or doing the dishes, and did those chores with the same kind of zeal or fervor that i do in playing drums, it would be creepy and weird. and i'd probably need 12 hours of sleep every day just to maintain my energy levels. so, no i don't want it quite like that. but i want to be able to have a job that i do every day, that offers me the opportunity to have little glimmers of that passion bubble up to the surface from deep within my soul every so often. just enough to remind me of why i'm alive. of why i'm here. of why the fuck nobody's killed me yet. and get a bit of a boost from it, so i have enough energy and self-motivation to be able to get in there and kick it in the butt, like i'm supposed to.

all i know is i'm sick of being poor, i'm sick of being bored, and i'm sick of being either A) stuck at home with a chore list five miles long that i refuse to do, or B) being out and about, thinking about all the chores i have back home that i'm not doing, and about all of the money i'm spending (and not making) in the process of being out. i need something else.

"Well then, I think I may be able to help you. You see, your cat is suffering from what we vets haven't found a word for. his condition is typified by total physical inertia, absence of interest in its ambience - what we vets call "environment" - failure to respond to the conventional external stimuli; a ball of string, a nice juicy mouse, a bird. To be blunt, your cat ... is in a rut. It's the old stockbroker syndrome; angst, weltschmerz, call it what you will-"
"Moping."
"In a way, in a way. Hmm... moping, I must remember that. Well now, what can be done? Tell me sir, have you confused your cat recently?"
"...well-"
"SHH! ... no."
"Yes, well I think I can definitely say that your cat badly needs to be confused."
"What?"
"Confused! To shake it out of its state of complacency. I'm afraid, I'm not personally qualified to confuse cats, but I can recommend an extremely good service. Here is their card."
"Oh... Confuse-a-Cat Ltd..."

goo goo