The internet is pulsing with remembrances of David Bowie. I'd like to write one myself but I'm not an expert. I'd like to write one but I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. Something about David Bowie seems overwhelming to me at this moment, like I would do very well to just sit down and listen to everything I can because this is the time to take it all in before he fades away.
But he'll never fade away. Not the way he went out. Not by drawing everyone's attention to how he would transcend death by always being present in everything that came afterwards, musically at least.
I think about my life and the work that I do I sometimes question if it's what I am supposed to be doing. When I was younger, I wanted to have a more creative life but it turns out I'm very guarded when it comes to putting out anything creative. I seem to use my own creativity as a way to prove my existence to myself.
Bowie always played to an audience, was so in control of his persona. Everything seemed to come effortlessly to him, but I'm also saying this from someone who never gave him too much thought until later in my life.
The day he died, I invested in a copy of FL Studio, the same program I used to use when I was younger to concoct little musical pieces. Using the name The Fundamental Grang I put together hours of silly tracks created for my own amusement. I was building on the music I'd been making with friends going back to high school.
I like to think that someone would be interested in it. This week none of it seems to matter and I just feel like I've been a pretender all this time.
I don't think I'll think like that for long. Right now I'm listening to another Bowie album I've never heard before, Scary Monsters. I can listen to it on YouTube without paying for it, just like I can listen to almost any album of any significance from the last 50 years.
Nothing I'll do will ever have that impact but that makes it no less significant. I don't know if I'll ever try to make any of my music available, but I would like to begin creating for a public audience. I'm so terrified of being critiqued and I don't want to ever lose the ability to find true meaning in things by expressing them musically.
The music software I've bought is much more advanced than it was then and I'm enjoying listening to it. After I wrote the previous post, I decided to put in headphones and mess around with sounds. I didn't entirely tune out the meeting, but enjoyed trying to put a beat to what I was hearing. There are some great synthesizers in the package and I enjoyed having a secret soundtrack to sitting in a drab discussion about policy.
It was important, the discussion, but I really wanted to be creating something. And so I did, and I felt better. The act of communicating with myself via a little tune.
Listening to David Bowie is now going to be very different for me. He's told a complete story and he's embedded threads throughout his entire discography that are him communicating directly to the universe - the universe being us.
I'm very sad that he's gone.
But he's left behind a treasure for so many people who have yet to discover any of this music, which is always evolving from period to period, persona to persona.
Aren't we all? My life at 42 is not the life I had at 21. Who knows what 63 will be like?
I don't know. But something about David Bowie's death makes me want to live to my fullest. I want to explore my creativity more and I want to use my skills to tell good stories about the world around me. I want to expand that world and I want to not be afraid to do so.
Now, before I do that, I'm going to check out Tin Machine for the first time. So much to explore!
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