I spend very little time on music these days. I also spend less time on social media, less time sharing my life, and less time interacting online. People ask me if I'm stepping down.
Have I finally "come to my senses" and decided to only do music as a hobby?
I can feel a hint of disappointment when I get that question. Not because it isn't true, cause it is. I practice less guitar, I play fewer shows, I write fewer songs, and try less to reach out with my music... In fact, I have never worked as a little on my music career as I do now.
Yet, my future and musical goals have never felt as clear and accessible to me.
While doing less, I'm also rebuilding a love for music and creating a path I want to be on, thus, somehow doing more than ever.
For the last few years, I've been insanely, overly obsessed with trying to grow my career and become "who I want to be". It has overshadowed what truly drives me and matters to me. After enjoying a few months of corona-vacation at my parents' house, I realized that I have nothing to lose by simply enjoying life for a little bit longer. Sounds like such a common-sense thing to do, doesn't it?
Therefore, I live with my parents. I don't have a job. And my main focus every day is to choose joy.
I don't make plans or to-do-lists, but rather choose to do whatever I feel drawn to doing in each moment. I call it "inspired action".
.
My inspired action has a tendency to include a spade, soil, and veggies, rather than guitar, voice, and writing. It has been difficult to allow myself to NOT work on music every day all day like I've done every day all day for 10 years... But I've decided to go with my flow. To not fight against my own drive and need for soil and hard work. To simply take a break from targeted music-playing until I feel like doing so again.
Yes, I have done a few shows now and then, and I do spend time recording new music, but I ONLY do it moments when I feel inspired to take action.
And it's working.
It's taking me on a very different path than I was on, but it's a good one. And I feel happy now. I truly do. Despite all my goals that yet haven't manifested themselves, arguments with parents, heartbreaks, ups, and downs, I feel a sense of happiness. Good feeling thoughts are much more available to me, and I think it's all because I'm trying so hard to keep focused on
the things I want to have rather than the things I don't have.
(Honestly, somehow I feel like I'm 12 again. Young, limitless, energized, naive, fearless, taking moment by moments.)
So, what do I want? One of the things I want is to live sustainably, self-sufficiently, and peacefully on a farm in the countryside. After living three years in Bergen, waiting for this life to somehow appear to me, I'm now trying to create it instead. You know, it makes so much more sense to me, to grow my own food as my "job", instead of having a job that gives me money to buy my food. Simply skipping a step and making my job directly linked to keeping me alive. To finally find myself on that path gives me such an incredible energy-boost and belief and drive. I work in the yard every day.
ALL my clothes are dirty and torn and I love it.
I believe that songwriting and farming is something I can incorporate into my life without having to choose one or the other or feel like I'm tied to one specific thing. So to the question: "Have I come to my senses and decided to do music as a hobby? " No... Just letting myself work on a different dream for a while, until I suddenly feel the urge to put more time and love into music again.
As we all know from wise Buddha-quotes and common sense, the source of joy is a way better power-engine than money, career, success, and so on. So...I'm simply trying that out:)
Talk soon, Eli
(PS: I created an Instagram account for my Veggie-farm. Feel free to follow if you want to see photos of my baby-veggies and greenhouse building. VALLMARK MARKEDSHAGE )
PSPS: One thing I've learned is that once you decide to believe in your own goals so much that your emotions feel like they have already achieved them, nothing becomes impossible.
