For the Love of the Game?

The two activities I enjoy most are playing sports and playing music. I once wondered why, in fact, I enjoyed them so much.

Music requires massive amounts of practice and discipline. Scales, chords, rhythms. Endless repetition of menial actions. The same goes for sports, only those actions are physically demanding as well as menial. Wind sprints, power skating, stretching, passing drills, shooting drills... It doesn’t sound like much fun on the surface.

But the fun doesn’t lie in the act itself, I think. It comes from the satisfaction of knowing you are the best that you can be at the actions, and can bring them all together to be better than someone else.

Even more than these two things, I think, my satisfaction comes from the recognition and attention I get from others as a result of playing well. If I score a goal in hockey or sing really well at a show, people are impressed, and it feels good. They acknowledge my worth by cheering for me, and who doesn’t love to be cheered for?

I think it stems from the same part of a person that longs for acceptance and to be part of a group, such as a band or team. My band and team are glad to have me because I contribute something of worth. I’m useful.

I don’t know whether or not it’s shallow to enjoy sports and music for the recognition. Some might think I ought to be doing it purely for the love of music and for the love of the game.

Honorable Thieves

We are repeatedly reminded in Creative Writing class that writers are “honorable thieves”, and stealing interesting words, effective forms, and intriguing subjects is condoned and encouraged. I’ve started to do this, but it certainly feels less than honorable.

I’ve dealt with such plundering of ideas before, in the context of writing music. As a young and naive musician, I believed every piece of music should be completely new and different from every other. It was frustrating to write under such conditions, because every riff, progression, or melody I thought I’d made up myself, I later discovered to be a copy, in whole or in part, of something I’d heard before.

I also didn’t want to play cover songs. I viewed it as a cop out. What self-respecting band steals other people’s music? You’re just admitting you’re not good enough to come up with anything good on your own.

My opinion started to change when I started to hear similarities between popular songs. Sometimes I would hear a pair of riffs, melodies, or forms that were simply too blatantly identical to be written coincidentally.

My dad pointed out that its hard to write something new that sounds better than something previously done. Musicians have been trying to push artistic boundaries for decades, and to some degree, especially stylistically, they have. But by and large, popular musicians have been cranking out essentially the same songs for just as long. The recycled riffs work, simply, because they have worked for years, and will continue to work for year to come.

Nowadays, I guiltlessly and intentionally steal stuff from songs all the time. I guess I should do the same with my writing.

Writing Journal

I've been taking a Creative Writing class for my elective this semester. The teacher assigned that we keep a "writing journal" to hand in at a specified date. In this journal, we were instructed to record ideas for stories and poems, words, names, descriptions of people and situations, overheard conversations, interesting things from books we read, lists, things that give us joy or make us mad, fragments of memories, dreams, or anything really.

Whenever I recorded an idea, it never felt right to leave it as a snippet. Perhaps because of years of vigorous essay-writing training by Mrs. Footz, I always felt the need to expand on the fragments and flesh them out into fully-functioning ideas. I began to do just that.

Several friends, upon hearing me describe this assignment, expressed interest in reading the journal. I've since decided to periodically post my favorite bits here, for the reading pleasure of anyone interested. Though the writing journal was my inspiration for starting this blog, I will continue to write and share my ideas past the completion of the assignment.

The title of this blog, First Class Honesty, is exactly what you can expect from everything you read here. My views are honest and authentically represented in what I hope is an entertaining and/or thought provoking way. (First Class Honesty is also the name of my band, for the same reasons)

Enjoy, and don't forget to comment!