…You will find it.
If you go around looking for reasons to believe that we are living in the darkest ages for art, then the world will never disappoint you.
If you you go around seeking offense, you will find reason to be offended.
If you go out looking for disagreement, polarization, misunderstanding, stupidity, cupidity, avarice and bad taste, the world will simply never let you down.
But if you go out looking for something better, you might just find that too.
I know what you’re going to say, because I’ve said it as well:
“I’ve tried that. I didn’t find it. The world really is worse now. Don’t you get that? Things really can be worse compared to how they were, when judged by a specific parameter. Like the suckiness of music for instance. It’s clearly all so sucky now. Or, I mean, look at wealth and greed! C’mon. It’s never been worse!”
Sure, that is “true”.
It is as “true” now as it has been for millions of people, thousands of times throughout history. And just as questionable.
What are you leaving out? What, in your narrow and predetermined search, are you missing?
What if instead, you searched for great music? I guarantee you that you will find it.
- “I tried that once. I’m telling you it all sucks.” You’re not looking hard enough. What did you do, give up because it wasn’t easy?
- “Well, the good stuff just doesn’t get heard.” Oh yeah? What are you doing about that?
- “People only care about what’s convenient for them.” Okay, nice observation Einstein. What are you doing to make great music more convenient for them?
- “They’re not willing to pay.” What are you doing to make them more willing to pay?
- “I’m telling you, there just isn’t any good stuff out there anymore.” Okay. Go make some.
There’s a new issue of Scientist out today. It’s a good one. It’s about how we use the internet.
This year will mark a major milestone in social media: Facebook has been around for a decade now. How are you using it?
Has it made your life better? Has it improved your career? How are these tools helping? Can they be used to help? Or can they only be used to distract, to promote negative reinforcements, to keep us from focusing on what’s important, and from making great art? Are we using them in the best and healthiest ways we can?
It’s 2014. Time to figure this part of your life out. Time for us all to figure it out.
“The economy” is on an upswing again. We don’t get to use that as our excuse anymore.
If you decide to seek your fortune, I can’t guarantee that you will find it, but you stand a much better chance than if you sit around hoping it will someday find you. And you might just have some fun along the way.
Break the cycle. If you seek poverty and suffering and pain and violence and lack of opportunity, you can find that too.
(Although, if we’re being realistic: Perhaps far less so today than in the past. And hopefully even less so in the future.)
However, if you seek ways you can help with that, personally, in your own life — not just by deferring this duty to some distant power — then you might just find some ways of doing that as well.
If the way you can do this is by making great music, then do it. If it’s by doing something else, then go focus on doing that instead.
I don’t care what it is. If you can make the world a better place than it was a moment ago by selling plumbing supplies or troubleshooting computers or making coffee, then godspeed. But do something.
It’s a start. And it’s the right basic approach.