Don’t Try

4

October 29, 2014 by Jason Phillips

Shortcut your way to success! Get more followers! Become famous! Buy plays! Buy Likes! Buy Comments!? What the fuck is going on.

There’s more music in the world, made by more people, available in more places than ever before. And people are buying less music than ever before. This is the first year there hasn’t been a platinum selling album. ‘Talent’ shows spew lame cover versions into millions of living rooms. Thousands of Beige-core bands, born from the whimpering arse of Chris Martin, wail in unison to the bored and silent mp3 generation.

Have we lost our minds?

Or have we lost our soul...

Your favourite band selfishly made music they LOVED. It was REAL. It was honest. And you got it. You felt the same! And you bought their albums and fell in love.

The best artists don’t consider their audience. They just keep working and keep digging and keep improving and keep creating. They keep expressing. When we express it all honestly and raw, people connect! ‘Difficult second album’ syndrome only exists because suddenly there is an audience to consider. ‘OH DEAR! What WILL THEY THINK! What will they expect from us?’

Trying is the opposite of expressing. Maybe that’s why Bukowski’s epitaph reads ‘Don’t Try’.

Surrender. Express from a place of contentment.  Create for no reason other than to create. Create because you love creating. Thousands of your ideas will fail. Keep creating. Do not dictate to the universe what it needs, get out of the way and let it tell you. Evolution is not a thinking process.

The more selfish you are, the more selfless the finished product will be. Self expression comes from the soul. All of our souls are connected. This is space. The Uni-verse. One true verse. The closer you can get to it, the more it will resonate with other human beings.

Bleed.

Be scared when you share your work. If you’re not embarrassed at the rawness of your creation, if you are not shaking when you put it into the world, then don’t.

If you think you’ve got it sussed, then you’re a million miles away.

Bow down to the unknown. Get to work. Get insanely honest. Be prepared for no one to give a single fuck.

Don’t Try.

And maybe, just maybe, your next creation will RESONATE.