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GoodLuckSam
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Name: Jason
Country: United States
State: Mississippi
Metro: Jackson
Gender: Male
Interests: God, relationships, music
Expertise: none
Occupation: Musician
Industry: Pop
Message: message me
Member Since:
1/12/2005
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| Life update:
I'm graduating in December. Taking one class (Spanish) in the fall.
I'm about to leave for camp. Super excited. I love going to camp because life is simple at camp. wish I could live everyday like I was at camp.
Right now I'm taking a two week summer school class, and recording an album for Danny Johnston and Abigail Crumley. Real, real excited. not about class. about Danny and Abigail's songs.
writing incomplete sentences.
What's happening to me?
I believe I should feel good about my life right now, bit I'm having trouble. I think my life looks positive. I'm heading into a season in my life where I'll be able to pursue my passion unhindered. But I feel sad and without energy. I feel like things aren't write good enough. Not as I expected them to be. I have less and less to do. And I hate it. I find myself sitting around the house, watching TV, playing guitar, living like a hermit, thinking to myself, "is this it? Is this what I have to look forward to? Is this my adult life? working at a gutiar store, wishing for something else to do, someone to hang out with, regretting everything?"I miss Ken. I miss Tyler. I miss Sarah. I miss Taps. I miss the people who used to be within arms reach. Now I feel alone. Even with people around me, I'm regretful and anxious and sad and introspective.
Maybe this is normal. Is this the sad come-down from college coming to an end. All my friends are leaving. Some I will never see again. And part can't help but think they're going home to lives much more fully realized than mine. What am I doing sitting around here? Why aren't I growing up. Maybe because I don't want to. I wish I could stay in college. I wish things could be like they were. I want to stay in the small pond. I want remain forever in a state of looking forward to the future. Was college truly the best years of my life? Is it downhill from here? God, what is wrong with me?
If I don't stop, I'm going to sit here and ask questions until the Xanga servers run out of space.
I can't keep this up. I have to stop trying to convince myself that the past was better.
I've got to stop killing myself with regret and unhealthy nostalgia.
Stop pretending this is the end, Jason. Stop planning on living tomorrow. Live today.
Didn't me and Cassie sing about this:
This is song's gonna be a happy one if we want it to
all it's gonna require is a little time
Stop singing about the things you're afraid of in front of you
Cause you and I both know that they are all in your mind
You've got more to live for than all of us combined, so stop your crying.
It's that time before you go that life seems slow
and honestly, it's never quite as good as the future
and what we hoped it could be
What kind of memories will we make if you never step up to the plate?
And you don't want to believe that you can't be happy where you are
In the middle of this mess is the perfect place to start
I believe you're a believer...
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| I have rekindled my obsession with the band Everclear.
I don't like all of the new features and navigation for this site. It frustrates me. I fully intend to keep this blog in it's purest, most traditional form. Nothing more than a profile picture and some text.
I have a new job as a guitar teacher at Fondren Guitars. I really, really hope I can get a good number of students quickly. Something like 12 or so is what I need to make rent comfortably. I'm also going to starting playing restaurant gigs, doing 4-hours sets of popular covers songs, just plain hustling. Everyday I'm hustling. Everyday I'm hustling. Check out Kat Williams "everyday I'm hustling" on Youtube to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.
I'm not getting enough rest these days. It's really beginning to take its toll. My priorities are all out of wack these days. I need to start acting like an adult.
In the book of Esther, God's people celebrated in anticipation of the victory God would deliver them through. I'm really like that.
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| I haven't blogged since right before fall semester started, mainly because I've been so busy that I never had a moment free to do such trivial things, but also because I lost the inspiration to put thoughts into words. What few good ideas I had to put to type these past few months have gone into my editorials. But so much has changed since then, I'm not sure I'd recognize my life if I had had the chance to peek into the future.
As of late December, I resigned as Editor of Quarter Tone. This may come a shock and surprise to most of you, because I haven't really told anybody yet, other than my housemates Ken and Taylor and the rest of BLC. Also, Jonathon Basset knows. Whatever. I've had no intention of formally announcing it on Xanga, but you would have found eventually when you noticed issues stopped showing up on the newsstands. Why did I do it? Lots of reasons. Lots and lots of reasons. I'll choose to not indulge any of you in the details of the specific event that directly caused it, but if it wasn't this that brought me to resigning, it would have been something else. And honestly, I'm kind of glad that something happened to knock my off course and give me a wake up call. Literally, the very next day after stepping down from the job, I realized how much I did not like the job of QT Editor. I loved being on BLC, I loved serving my school, I loved the staff I had under me, but I simply was not passionate about the job I was doing. I was never made to be a journalist. I have absolute no heart for working in press. I was in a position where I was passionate about why I was doing the job, but absolutely unenthusiastic about the job itself. It's unhealthy to put so much work and effort into something that only half of you heart is in. So, anyway, I cut loose that part of my life.
With that loss in my life, the floodgates were opened. This led me to take inventory on everything in my life. Nothing was safe. I'm cutting away everything that caused me to lose sight of me, to lose my life in an activity. My life is ultimately dictated by who I am, not by what I do. That a tough lesson for me to learn. I read somewhere that the secret of life is to “die before you die.” To destroy everything you have so you can break all identification with it, understand the meaning of loss and failure, and finally create a space to start anew. When I finally die, I'll truly understood what it means to live. I'm reevaluating everything I had previously thought and embracing the emptiness of this life, and planning on the fullness that will come in the next one. So now I'm starting down a new path, taking with me only the bare essentials. I'm no longer going to be weighed down by the burden of what I do, by the imaginary pressure I put on myself. I'm taking stock in what's important, not what I accomplish or what goal I fulfill, but in the people I love, the joy I embrace, the man I become, the Lord I worship.
With this new life perspective comes a new lifestyle, beginning with one major transition. I'm finally moving out of my parent's house. I'm moving in with my best friends Ken and Taylor. I'm actually right in the middle of setting up all my stuff in my new room. I'm searching hardcore for a job to pay the rent right now. Now that I'm no longer BLC, my life is completely free of obligation other than classes, so I can commit enough time to a job to make enough money to pay rent. It's all kind of crazy right now, some things I'm uncertain of, a couple of spots where I'm just flat out praying for a miracle, but it's all great, all very exciting.
This is a huge step I'm taking towards being becoming the man I want to be. I decided that I was going to throw myself into this "sink or swim" situation of being an adult and just go for. Stop slowing myself down with the how's and the what-if's, and just live huge, to not be afraid to screw up, to improvise, to actually live like I'm alive. I'm beginning to stand up on my own two feet. My vision for my life after graduation is becoming clearer by the day. Graduating by May is becoming more and more a possibility. But even if I don't graduate in May, it's OK. I'm through putting that pressure on myself. I think was so obsessed with graduating on time because I was afraid of what people would think of me if I didn't. Honestly, at this point, I don't care.
So if you are reading this, sorry I didn't tell you this momentous news in person. I could really use your prayers, because the next few months are going to be scary. I have no idea what's going happen, or if I'll even survive, but I think I like it that way.
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| In the 21 and rough one half years I've been living, I've come to and from several varying opinions about life, what it means, and whether it sucks or not. I think I can say with great confidence that, in the end, it unequivocally does not suck. It's never, ever what you want it to be, but it definitely doesn't suck.
I made the decision to devote less of my time to music for my senior year. I wanted to take a break, assess everything, enjoy my friends while they're still here, while I'm still here. I have a newspaper to run, a degree to attain, life decisions to make. I needed no distraction in order to make the best choice. But that's not what God has in mind.
I've been e-mailing back to forth with a guys from a talent agency as I told you last time. Now I just talked to a guy that works on the committee to plan events at Mississippi State University. They're interested in having me perform at the school for some event. Nothing is confirmed yet, but that could mean a small, coffeehouse-type thing, or it could mean this year's Bulldog Bash, their annual HUGE outdoor music event. It's pretty crazy to consider. I've got huge opportunities coming at me, and I'm trying to take a break from chasing all of that. Maybe this is all telling my I actually have a future in this. Maybe I can be a musician after college. Maybe I need to forget about college and do this music thing right now. College will always be here, but opportunities leave fast. Am I destined to follow in the footsteps of my father and drop out of college for a career in music? I don't know.
At this point, the best part is I'm thanking God for this. I've got tough decisions, but good decisions. I'm charged with choosing the greater of two goods, which is awesome. But it is no less difficult.
Anyway, I'm blessed, I've got nothing to complain about, life is wonderful, even at its darkest.
You should come here me play this Saturday at Cups in Fondren at 8pm. So much for taking a break, right?
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| So I just got back from my first shift at the Fairview Inn since I got back from camp.
It was OK, I'm not completely rusty on how to serve rich people. Come to think of it, I spent 7 weeks serving rich peoples' kids. Funny.
I've got so much work to do in the next week and a half to get ready to be a newspaper editor.
This mainly involves learning layout software. I've got such grand, abstract visions and ideals about the paper, but I've got to hold on the details. I can't get lost in the big picture. It's pretty much details time right now. It's a good thing I've got some really great editors. I don't know what I'd do if I had to run this paper alone.
I'm feeling a little crazy as my senior approaches. I've got so much ahead. I've got to be serious about my classes, I'm running a paper, I'm fiercely focused on having the fullest senior year I can.
And I had no idea what I was doing after graduation.
Until a few weeks ago, when I got an e-mail from Greenlight, a artist developement agency. What artist developement agencies do is work to connect musicians and labels. Granted most of these places are phony and are just trying to make a few bucks off me. But there are sincere, reputable agencies out there. And I've made a habit of responding to theses e-mails politely and with a guarded invitation to continue talking. They usually don't respond after that.
But this place actually kept up. I've been writing back and forth with a guy at Greenlight for a while, and he tells me that he really hears potential in my music. This is crazy.
This could be my ticket. It's all very hard to comprehend, right now, days away from my senior year starting. I don't think I going to do anything serious right now. I think I'm going to hold off on all this until I graduate. I made a commitment early this summer that I was going to focus on being a student, editor, and friend formost for this next nine or ten months. After graduation, I'm all for going in feet first.
Please pray for me, that if this is meant to be a great opportunity, that I would pursue it. If it's not, I would learn and grow still. And whatever God has planned for me, I will find joy in it and be thankful. Within his grace, there is only victory. | | |
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