I need to find music that speaks to me again.  I've outgrown my collection.  I find slivers of things that are relevant... but I need more.  Its hard without money.  But, I haven't found anything that I've got my eye on anyway.  I think Bob Dylan got something right about the honesty of folk music... and god knows in this dark, dark world I crave honesty.  Because I am honest and so I am a loser because it seems like no one else is honest.  I had compelling feelings when I was a teenager - was it hormones?  I don't know.  I always thougth I wouldn't let go of the power I found in music.  My parents never seemed very interested in music.  I thought they just weren't interested.  Now I'm worried its what happens when you get old.  I'm very interested - desperately interested.  But there's no music that's REALLY spoken to me for years.  Sometimes I catch a glimpse of something but its not compelling enough to take me on a journey.  I think I need to discover music as a musician... I think I need to learn the guitar - which I avoided because I didn't have the confidence.  I played the bass instead. 

I am in a strange place right now.  Its a place like purgatory.  Not good not bad.  No passions racing through me becuase I feel for something passionately.  Where I was working was bad for my soul.  Sometimes I think if I achieved something I would be proving something to them... but, in reality I know I wouldn't.  I know that now I'm not there they will always be making jokes at the expense of my personality - I saw it done to others before me.  It reassures me that I needed to go.  I have nothing to prove to anyone... except myself.  And, except the relatives and other people around that doubt me - that see me as a leach to my partner.  I need to prove to them that I can start a business and that its a more intelligent thing to do than to keep working for people who cannot comprehend the depths of my soul.... who would probably be surprised that I still have a soul.... and that I still carry it around with me. 

So, I need to discover music.  I don't know how, or what.  I'm going to check out the stuff Bob Dylan mentions in his autobiography.  But I don't think my soul's in the same place his was.  And, that music was from his country.  It was his land, about his people.  I don't have a people... not really.  The only heritage we have is that we stole the country from its previous owners and have inflicted such pain on them that it is as vivid now as it was when it all started.  They have heritage, they have people, they have music.  I have nothing.  I guess I probably have a convict heritage.... or a migrant heritage.  I don't know.  Maybe that's why I'm lost - I don't know where my own blood flows from.  I wish I knew.  But to get any piece of information would be painful now - trying to draw it out of relatives that I've never had a connection with. 

I think there are few things more honest than a lone voice with a single guitar.  Its being exposed.  Nothing to hide behind.  So, you have to be real.  That's it, there's no other option.  I want to do it myself... not sure if I can.  If I'm going to I need to see it done - I need to find some others.  So I can follow their lead a bit I guess.  I couldn't see me being a guitar virtuoso.  I'd be more of a poet backed by some uncomplicated strumming of common chords.  I guess I can see the blues tradition and structure working for me with that ... and I already know it from playing blues bass.  But its not where my heart is - not where my blood flows from.... or to.  My veins are dry.  There's just dust.  I don't know where I can go to replenish.  I don't know where my music lies.  I need it though.  I need that nourishment for my soul.  It would make everything else okay.  Music is like air - I need it to breath.  And, I haven't had it for so long.  Its like I've been holding my breath.  My vision, my hearing everything has dulled and its waiting, for the air and the replenishment for the blood and the nutrients.  I need to find it.  I feel like I've been to so many false gods now and knelt before them.... and they just kicked me in the head.  Yes, I feel bitter.

But, not sooo bitter... not strongly bitter.  I feel angry - angry at being kicked around by the legal system.  But, you can't sustain that anger.  And you will always be kicked around by the legal system - you can't afford to let it define you.  I feel a kind of calm... but its easily interrupted - like when I get kicked around by the legal system.  I don't believe that everything is fine and beautiful and okay... and thats what calm music is about.  So maybe I'm not calm.  Maybe the calm is just the calm before the storm.  I wanted to change the world... now I don't think I can.  But.... I still wanna try I think.  Without too much personal sacrifice.  On the other hand I can't help but sacrifice myself over and over.  Honesty, integrity, values, truth - these things are about self-sacrifice.  I hang onto them desperately all the time knowing they only apply to me.  Everyone sets their own values.  So what do I do?  Can music still save me like it did in the past?  I used to listen to angry music...  I don't think I was angry... but I needed to express that I will be angry if I want to be.  I will be socially unacceptable if it seems like the only intelligent thing to be.  But that is expressed now.  Said and done.  And futile.

Where can I go with this?  With music?  What now?  What next?

And, how will I drive myself - to success in being self-sustaining.  I must do that - that much I believe in.  But wow, I have lost motivation.  I'm not driven anymore.  Not like when I was down and they kept kicking me.  But then I was so stretched and twisted it hurt my head every day.  I couldn't think or move.  I needed to stop.  To dust off my soul.  I guess I'm approaching a cross-road perhaps.... its a feeling I have... like I have to choose.  Like I have to find passion.  They talk about careers - its not that I thought I wanted one but I didn't want to not have the opportunity to have one.  But they are so hollow.  I haven't seen it give anyone happiness - only purpose when they didn't question the bigger picture - the whole picture - who or what they were doing what for.  I must be an artist.  That's my soul.  That's why I still carry it around with me.  It was almost dead.  I nearly gave up on it in my darkest most bitter moments.  But not any more.  I have been nurturing it with quiet and calm.  Now I think it is strong enough that its time for nutrients for intellect, thought, purpose, passion.  If it can be inflated like this again and in time for time.  Then, I think I will be okay.  And so I need music - one of the most important nutrients.  I hope I can find it in time.