Identity is easier to develop than to change.
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Notes
Dave Grohl notes that many great musicians decided to become musicians when they were between 10 and 13.
The important thing they learned at that age was not the skills of musicianship, but the identity as musician.
It’s not magic; it’s just easier to develop an identity when you’re not changing from another that you’ve already developed. “The practice doesn’t care when you decide to become an artist. What simply matters is that you decide.”
Thoughts
I was something 15 or 16 when I decided I wanted to be a musician. I’d made the transition from trumpet player to guitarist. I’d stumbled on both albums and performances from musicians, mostly Christian, and especially Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill (both of whom I’ve mentioned before); Stonehill in particular was a great acoustic player, and in many ways I wanted to be him: alone on stage, singing my songs and playing my guitar.
I pursued that a bit. As I mentioned in thoughts about the previous chapter, I was delusional for a good chunk of that time—I thought I was a way better guitarist and singer and writer than I was. But I was serious about it, and when I saw that jazz guitarist, I buckled down a bit, at least.
Looking back, I didn’t “have what it takes,” whatever that means, exactly. Books like The Practice, or like the newly released Rick Ruben meditation on creative, The Creative Act: A Way of Being didn’t exist (or, if they did, I wasn’t aware of them). I was (and remain) shy, even fearful—not a problem on stage, for some reason, but a huge problem when it came to networking or getting gigs or handing out flyers.
When my band, the Reign, broke up, most of the music went with. I can’t remember the precise order of events (and I’m too lazy to look it up), but the music faded out, and the return to school faded in. And then there was grad school, and a family, and a job—and now, retirement is within spitting range.
This is not meant as a self-indulgent autobiography; it’s the context for a question that this chapter raises. What is my identity? If “English professor,” then what will it be in 2 1/2 years, when I’m likely to retire? It feels that my sense of who I am just kind of happened, but that’s probably not accurate. I mean, I didn’t accidentally become an English professor; when I went back to school for real (after the “let’s see if I like it” stage), that was the goal. And I remember writing something like “tenure-track position” on a good-luck tile in Japan (it was a fund-raiser for a temple; the tiles were part of a soon-to-be-installed roof).
I guess the question I’m avoiding by writing so much is this: what identity could I develop, if I chose to? And that word “could” is doing a lot of work. Could I—would it be possible for me to—change from this accrued identity to a new one? Would I want to? If I did, what would that look like?
Within the context of what Seth is trying to build—to convince his readers (and me) of—identity matters. Do I believe that I could or should “be a musician”? Do I want that? I don’t know that I know. And that makes the whole process of building a practice kind of… tricky? empty? incomplete?
Here I’ve been complaining that Seth is going so slowly in this book, but I don’t know that I’ve actually come to terms with the fundamental issue that he’s been addressing.
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.