@thefuturist8864

1 year ago

I'm 42 and have spent my life being discouraged by most people I know from doing art, specifically music. My parents let me learn a couple of instruments when I was a kid, but once I got to my late teens they were adamant I should focus on finding a career and put everything else to the side. Meanwhile, I had a dream of starting a band where I wrote the songs, though not necessarily for me to sing. I saved up some money and bought some equipment, and from the moment I first set it up I was told that it was a waste and that retirement is the time to do art and music. I pressed on, wrote the songs, formed the band and found that my parents still didn't support us (or even ask how it was going). Other adults referred to it as a 'hobby' and the idea that songwriting was something meaningful to me was something they found confusing (at best) and amusing (at worst). Years later, the band broke up, but I continued to write songs. My parents gave away my piano without telling me (they lied and said they were just loaning it to a neighbour). When I was in my mid-30s I realised that my life felt empty without music, and I'd kept writing songs, so I decided to book some time in a recording studio. That Christmas I was staying with my parents, and when I told them what I was planning to do my mother looked down at the table, made a face, and said "you're not still doing that are you?" with as much disdain as she could express. A few years afterwards, I was diagnosed with ASD. The diagnosis has done nothing for me, and in many ways has made things harder, but it's given me a way to shut the disdain down. It's not a happy thing, because it has involved medicalising 'me' and the things that I find meaningful and important, but it's helped a little bit. However, I still have that voice - that collective voice of a hundred adults - telling me to stop wasting my time with frivolous things and get on with my 'career'. It's baffling to me that I never received any encouragement from the people who were in positions to give it, including music teachers (one of whom once told me "music's not really for you"). It never ceases to anger me when I hear people saying things like 'just do it' and 'just follow your dreams', and I wonder if they are aware of the psychological barriers that this world can set up. I used to be frightened of spiders and the dark, but now the only thing that scares me is that I will grow old and become that guy who hates everything because he never felt like he was able to do it himself; who desperately wanted to do something different than what was expected of him but never managed to, and has become overwhelmed with anger and bitterness. I can't bear the thought of being bitter, because it would be a feedback loop; my bitterness, produced in large part by the discouragement I received, would then produce discouragement by me towards others who are in exactly the same position I was in.

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