Andy Dear | Thursday, 11 March 2021
For the past several months, I have been listening to a Youtube influencer named Rick Beato. For those of you who are not familiar with Rick, he is a musician/record producer/engineer turned Youtube personality that has a very popular channel regarding all things music. His series titled "what makes this song great" is a favorite of mine that I often find myself listening to during the long drive to and from my office.
Recently Rick uploaded a video called "Fortunes of Failure-The Road Taken". It's a moving piece about the twists and turns of his life as a budding musician, and how the failures led him to a successful career in music production and engineering. Although my days as a musician are pretty far back in the rearview mirror, Rick's description of his journey got me thinking about my epiphany that whatever talent I had as a guitar player was not going to get me invited to the party that I wanted to attend. At some point during my journey through music, I came to the painful but necessary realization that music, as much as I enjoyed it was not the creative outlet that would ultimately give me the most satisfaction in my life. Whatever talent I had as a skilled technician and regurgitator of other people's creations, was far overshadowed by my equal lack of talent and skill for writing my own songs. I was horribly behind the curve as a songwriter...and when I say horribly, I mean HORRIBLY behind the curve.
Not long after I started building rods in 1994, I began to notice less and less of a desire to play the guitar, simply because the satisfaction I received from developing products for the fishing rod industry far outweighed my enjoyment of learning another Van Halen solo note for note. The main reason being that the products I developed were creations of my own, and not someone elses. I can vividly remember waking up in the middle of the night (much like musicians do) with an idea for a new product. Of course...like songs not all of them were hits, and some of them never made it beyond the stage of conjecture. But, the satisfaction I got from the process itself, far outweighed anything I ever experienced in my musical pursuits.
As Rick discusses in his video, had I chosen to stay on the path I was walking, I wouldn't have had the career I've had, nor would I have had the amazing angling opportunities I've been so fortunate to have experienced over the last 25 years. Even more importantly I wouldn't have the circle friends in my life that I do, nor would I have my wife and son, who I can't imagine being without.
During the 11 years I was away from the angling business, I always had a nagging sense that, I wasn't through, with what I had to offer the fishing community. And you know what? I NEVER had that feeling with music. In fact, just the other day I picked up the guitar, and blazed off a few blues licks, and thought to myself "Yep that was the same stuff you were doing in 1989". I set the guitar down and walked off without any feeling of regret about my decision to walk away from the instrument.
I've often heard that one of the many symptoms of a mid-life crisis is the propensity to spend time reflecting on the past with a deep sense of nostalgia. If that's the case I am neck-deep in my own crisis, because much of my days are spent thinking about the zigs and zags my life has taken and how it led to my current position, which ironically enough, is as far as I can tell, exactly where I'm supposed to be. If however any of you see me driving around in a convertible red Corvette, with a female companion half my age, please send Paul to the states with an HT10 to beat some sense into me.
Hope your all having a great week,
Andy