Re-Post 2: Playing from my Base

13 MARCH 2006

I, it seems, am nigh unable of spontaneous creativity, relationships, or anything else for that matter without something or someone as an anchor. Allow me to explain:

When I first got here to State, I had no friends. This is understandable, as I had just transferred from a different university and was going through the standard "get-acquainted-with-radically-new-environment" stage. But, by the end of my first semester, I still had no friends other than my housemate who was (and is) an old friend from high school who, as luck would have it, doesn't really have any friends here either (his friends are mainly back where we went to high school). So eventually I got on good enough terms with one of my horn section members to hang out with her and her friends, who I am now much better friends with.

It was around then that I realized that I cannot make friends from nothing; I need the security of an established relationship to branch out. My friends at State are through a fellow horn player because I was forced into a situation in which we needed to be friendly. It's not that I don't think that she's awesome or regret being thrown into a forced-friend situation with her, but rather that I would not have ever engaged her otherwise. I came to realize that all of my friends at my high school were from band or through this girl that I was trying to date freshman year. In middle school I became friends with the friends of one of my bandmates. Even in elementary school I was only really aggressive when I needed to be (e.g. kindergarden) and then latched onto a select few people and branched out from there. I even met my fiancee via her being the friend of someone else that I was dating, who I was in a class with.

This peculiar phenomenon has, I've discovered, its roots much deeper in my psyche than just relationships. Whenever I attempt to make an original story it is always a collection of good ideas that never really links up. My ideas for films are so far from presentable that they are almost laughable. When I choose to adapt an existing story, however, I can generate an amazing output, including having a full four hour epic (split into two films, calm yourselves) planned from start to finish. I'm also much better at coaching people artistically than I tend to be at producing. I can give amazing critique that really helps my friends compositions, but when they ask me if they can see what I wrote, I often don't have anything to show them.

I have taken steps to rectify my problem with needing to be...I guess "referential" is the most apt. I am trying to force myself into social situations and to force myself to commit something down to paper in terms of ideas. This blog (no paper per se but the purpose is the same) is one example, as is carrying around a music sketchbook. And recognition is the first step to recovery. I just never realized until a few hours ago that my social problem is also my creativity problem and probably a good amount of other issues as well.

My name is DubTak and I need a strong anchor to achieve spontaneity.
Hello DubTak.

Ta.