I just wanted to do a quick update on the following;
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My progress with the book ‘A Hero’s Journey Through the Music Industry’…
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Where I am with my next blogs…
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How I am shifting the blog topics to more specific areas of performance, musicianship and the music industry.
Summer Time…So, I took the summer off, unusual for me I know. My son Luke got married to the beautiful Stephanie, we traveled a bit, discovered the amazing wild beauty of Achill Island of the coast of Mayo and generally made the most of a summer break. ( just noticed that if you put a space into Achill you get “A chill’ island, and that says it all really). I see now the summer has given me time to reflect on this website and on my blogs. Some time to think about what they want to become?
Everything goes back to the beginning
Walking this morning on the ancient trails around Lough Derg (my very own “haunts of ancient peace”), I happened on an old memory. Right now the hedgerows and lanes are bursting with wild blossom of every conceivable kind but my attention was taken by one thing. At first, I wasn’t even sure why it caught me so – this was one of those slow-dawning bolts from the blue (I mix good cocktails too, not just metaphors). It was a moment where I was afforded a rare insight into where it all started for me. It had never occurred to me that there was an actual starting point – but I guess all things have a beginning. So, was this my ‘musical big-bang moment’?
In my early youth, I witnessed something that stayed with me for a long time – right up until today in fact. One day, a man who drove a truck for my father broke down (the truck, not him) and needed towing to a workshop (lets call him Jim). The guy towing him, (lets call him Bill), hooked up the towrope and after a brief discussion they set off. I rode shotgun with Bill. We hadn’t gone far when Bill started to show signs of strain; on himself and the vehicle he was driving. There were a lot of expletives and cursing, (the lingua franca of the building trade back then), especially when driving up even the mildest of inclines.
This piece first published by the good people at Enkindle Global
Standing in the fire – Is Burnout Inevitable?
When I started writing this piece I thought I was going to be telling the story of other people’s journeys, it did not occur to me that the real story, the real experience, was mine.
The more I have pondered (and wrestled with) the subject, the more I realised that the best way to serve the topic was to work from where I am, or where I have been, and how far I have travelled. To dig where I stand. Just as those who so kindly and generously offered their stories of Burnout did so with me, when they opened their hearts with their raw and honest accounts of the collateral damage they experienced. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.
