A War We All Can't Lose... Dangerous Muse.

I have a new favorite song.  Written by a local, and better yet, someone I know personally... although I don't know if he'd remember me all that well.  I went to school with his daughters.  His name? Andrew Smith.  The song? 

Dangerous Muse.
(http://www.roadmapmusic.com/mood/intense/) [The second track, click the yellow "play" button to listen)

I'm becoming a huge fan of ballads.  I saw Great Big Sea live on Friday night with a friend, and heard this title track from their new album, Safe Upon The Shore.  Check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlZUwVTfQyU&feature=related

The reason I love ballads is because they produce in me a very ethereal (in the metaphysical sense) longing for life.  As ballads are a much more ancient form of music than rock and pop, they immediately transport me into this primal sort of thinking, where nothing matters but the will to live and the strength to fight for what I love - my family and my home.  To a place and time when there was naught but the plow and the sword to live by, when a man worked the earth and went to war whilst his woman stayed and took charge of the house and children, and sang to them about the day their father would come home.

Nowadays, things have changed so much, as the natural course of technological advancements decree.  There's nothing wrong with that... people live and die as they always have and always will, but now there's more ways to die as well as more ways to prevent one's death, through medicine and things... but sometimes I feel like we've lost something important over the centuries, which is that will to live.  Live, meaning not just remain physically sustained, but to have something you'd give your life for, to take opportunity, to learn and achieve and have something to show for the years you've spent on earth.

Maybe this doesn't apply to everyone.. there are plenty of motivated people here that are doing just that.  However, and I see it personally every day, there are more and more folks who have no idea what they want out of life.. people who just sit and play games or watch movies, go to work, come home, eat, and sleep.  They're just existing, and you know it because they're bored all the time, but when the question comes, "What should we do?"  they never have an answer.

I feel like that sometimes.  My life is (ironically) like the images from a heart moniter... I hit highs where I feel like I can do anything and be anyone, but they're only temporary and after a few months I find myself down in a valley again.

A friend once told me that humans get bored with anything after approximately three months, give or take.  We need constant change in order to stay motivated.  I've never seen a study to corroborate her statement, but I have to believe it, because it's true for me.

Two examples in the last months - my job, first of all.  I loved it for a month, and then the novelty wore off, and then the un-novelty wore off, and I get bored now, and all the staff are in the same boat because tempers are continually wearing shorter.  Hour reductions start April 2nd, and I get laid off for the summer April 29th.  I couldn't ever see myself saying this in the beginning, but I can't wait for it to end now.  I'm in my fifth month, and it's grating on me.

Second example is trampoline and tumbling.  I've been taking classes for two months, and practicing on my own at a small gymnastics gym my mom works at.  Everything was great and I was learning and progressing fast enough to suit my expectations.. until two weeks ago.  I got tired at the end of practice, couldn't land a trick that I can normally, and since then I'm really not even motivated to try anything.  I was so close to landing some things I've been working on for weeks, and I don't even care any more.  I want to know how to do those and other tricks still, but I get on the trampoline and I can't find the drive within myself any longer - it's just as easy to jump off again and walk away.  It doesn't matter to me.  Now I want to learn to play my bodhran, but it gets frustrating (as I'm learning off of youtube with no formal instruction), and I know that eventually I'll give that up too. 

It bothers me, because it's sort of difficult to become good at anything when you only try for two or three months, but at the same time how do you keep yourself excited and willing to pursue your goals when you walk in one day and find out that it doesn't even matter to you any more?  Even with dogs, something I love and could do all day, I find myself feeling 'done'.

The bigger problem is, when I get bored with my current interest, I tend to get bored with everything else as the feeling spills over from that one activity into the rest of my life, and I enter into a cycle of depression.  Having dealt with this a number of times in past years, the only solution I've been able to find is to learn something new.. but often I have problems motivating myself to even get out and try.

I'm entering into that again now.. bored with life and the things I've been doing.. I can't wait to get out my bike and go riding until I'm so exhausted I can't even think about being bored.  Go swimming and relax in the warm summer sun.  But I still need something to do, something that's worth getting up for and being excited about.

And I need to figure out how to stay motivated for the things I'm involved in now.. otherwise I'll end my life being mediocre at a thousand different things, but with no great skill in anything to show for all the time I put into it when I was interested.

I don't really have a big question for introspection this week.  But if you know how I'm feeling and maybe have a way to get past it, please comment and share.  If you don't have a solution but still can identify, comment anyway so we can all be moody, uninterested suckers together.

Just kidding.. sort of.

Oh, and by the way, this is the greatly anticipated (one can dream, can't one?) part 3 of that three piece thought I started a few weeks ago.  Although... ach, nevermind.  It wasn't all that great anyway.