Ascension

Some say goodbyes are the hardest. Or Endings. Same thing? Maybe, maybe not. But personally, I'd say it's the beginnings that seem to me the biggest roadblocks to a task. 

Everything needs a beginning. A head, a big bang, a coat of primer, a frame, an idea. So, what happens when you have a beginning? What happens after you've cracked through? 

Pressure. 

It's the pressure to perform.

Imagine there's a new song you've heard about, maybe listened to somewhere on the internet, or your friend played it, or you saw an advertisement. So you decide to check it out. You get your headphones, open the music app, search the song, click play. 

The music starts. The drums roll out. The first vocals appear, and the beat drops. 

You've been introduced to the song. This is the part everybody has been talking about. It has started. And what follows? 

Listen to these two examples. The first one, Father Stretch My Hands pt.1 by (Kan)Ye. And the second, Bullets/Free Falling by Copium. Beautiful, beautiful intro to a song, quite a buildup, and then the beat drop. Now, when you listen to music like this, you expect it to continue it's...vibe, let's say. Hip-hop as a genre, has been built around sampling as a nucleus, and the first part you hear, has already existed somewhere before. The original, is undoubtedly good. And sampling, brings out the better in it. 

I think I have a tendency to get diverted from a topic and I'll do it unabashedly once again, when you listen to certain songs, of the hip-hop genre, sometimes the songs, they end up are so different from the songs they sampled, it's almost like they had no relation to the original. The remixes, or samples, when surpass the original, become an original themselves. 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (full quote later). If I draw better than Raja Ravi Verma, I still won't surpass him. But if I deviate a bit from Cèzanne, I can become Picasso. See? The key here, is innovation when sprinkled with your own personal creativity. How is then, following the footsteps supposed to lead to success? Aren't we supposed to forge our own paths?

Out with the philosophy, back to the analysis. And shortly we'll be back to the rambling again. These two songs, maybe they have nothing in common, do meet somewhere. Father Stretch My Hands pt.1 has probably the most unhinged lyrics ever written in music history, and Bullets/Free Falling? Let's just not even go down that route (the song has been removed from youtube, you can still find it on spotify though). It's like buying a Red Komodo just to shoot your dog taking a sh*t. Totally justifiable with your phone camera, we get it - you love your baby, but why the Red??? 

I didn't make my point. Thank you for waiting. I will now proceed to make my point. You're welcome.

When you start, and find success, among other things, you gain expectations. Expectations to continue your form. Expectations to deliver again. That you're not a miracle. A one trick pony. A one hit wonder. With these expectations, there comes the pressure. 

So, what do you do? It's up to you honestly. I'm not a motivational speaker, or a philosopher, I'm just an average guy who writes. But, here's what I have usually seen. 

Once you get the ball rolling, there's this something called inertia. It's always been there, Newton just wrote it down for the westerners. When Max Verstappen lifted that trophy up in Barcelona-Catalunya, he never stopped. When Porsche rolled off the 911, they never stopped. When Mozart played his first originals to his father, he never stopped. It wasn't about the hit or miss, a few losses here or there. It was about the consistency. The ability to continue on that momentum and produce works that had the same results, greatness. 

Staring at a blank page will produce no results. A first stanza introduces a meter, and then it sets the rhythm for the rest. The first stanza impresses you, and the second stanza hooks you up. But the second stanza, and the entire poem, is nothing without the first one. That's just how it is. That's just how it works. 

And everything, it starts with an idea, I said it previously too. That idea grows into dreams. How do you keep the dream going? You have the drive, you get the passion to roll the gears, you grind and you grow, and you don't stop. 

Let's get back to our examples. Good beginnings to both the songs. But absolutely horrendous after the build up/beat drops. Do you know what happens to art that starts good and doesn't hold up? 

It gets chopped up.

They cut it into pieces. They tear and wear and shorten your work into a thousand, million pieces. They nitpick what they like and throw away the rest. They post it online, they put it in edits, they make another art out of it, they remix it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, that mediocrity can pay to greatness. They, will remix it. They will, make it better. They will kill, your vision. They will replace you. Your art. Your dream. Your idea. Your beginning.

So what do you do now? You work. You work harder than before. 

Keeping the ball rolling seems easy, seems fun. Because that's, what people see. They don't know how you got it rolling, and that makes the task much more unrewarding, questionable, doubtful, unsatisfactory, pointless, and a bit depressing even. No one is going to see you start. The next time you feel sad and overwhelmed and question yourself why you do this, remember, people will see success, not the struggle. 

I'm in no means saying, that keeping the ball rolling is easy either. You know that yourself, and so I've come full circle. Yes, beginnings are hard, maybe the hardest. But apparently still not as hard as keeping up the momentum. What about the Endings then? Where do they stack up? We'll come to that in a few posts. 

That's all for this one.

Till next time.