Everyone has downtime and uptime, at some point. With that said, I start this article. I recently had a very disappointing downtime that I used to reflect and understand rather than feel suicidal or pathetic.
You know, that kind of downtime kills some people because feel permanent: I put the emphasis on the word “feel” because reality has its ups and downs and twists and turns, realities that are always better understood if you look at them with patience, understanding, tolerance, and without taking it for granted. Sure, feelings are an accurate meter when viewed with objectivity, patience, and understanding. When taken too literally, albeit with fear and misunderstandings, they are a disaster that is happening or waiting to happen. Hence, suicidal, hopeless, or pathetic feelings arise in a hasty or disgusting way.
I look at it this way: as long as action can be taken actively, there is always hope and the possibility of understanding what really happened, and then making something better happen through that understanding. In fact, ultimately, optimism is better than pessimism in that regard. But there are no exceptions: if there is uptime, there is downtime, for everyone, however, you can look at reality and it all depends on how you react realistically.
So in my reality, all downtime is prep time, not time to feel hopeless or pathetic. There is no shame in this reality. Anyone who thinks that failure is permanent as long as they are alive and able to remedy the situation is truly a fool as long as they have such thoughts. On the other hand, the optimist who knows that things can ultimately be improved, whenever they get the chance, is using his intelligence correctly.
In fact, perfection is just a concept created by the mind on paper and in daydreams, especially when we expect it to be instantaneous and the beginner’s luck to be repeatable. We must train and work to really achieve perfection in that sense, not expect it to be a fact without work or process. Results come from action, they are not fact anyway.
When I think of good results, I think of the work it takes to win them, I don’t expect a lucky start “out of the gate”. Even if those lucky beginnings happen, I don’t depend on them being repeatable, or if they don’t happen, I don’t look for them. I gain the ability to do what I have to do.
So since this article is called “blues,” what makes a great musician, a genuinely great musician? Practice, perform, work, and create great music through that practice, performance, and work. The same is true of life. The same is true of all existence. Do you need more story than that, or is the picture here complete?
