Personal Reflections

There are times when I feel like I am headed in the right direction.  I feel that I have more than enough talent to follow my dreams and to justify this incredible risk I have taken.  There are other times when I feel like I am in way over my head.  Perhaps it is my own insecurity, built up over the past few years.  Perhaps it is my lack of meaningfully comparative feedback.  I have no idea where I stand in relation to my peers at EMU or my peers in the world of music at large.

When I began my musical studies, I remember my fellow students talking about Sean Peterson as a veritable theory genius.  I thought that was very cool because it is what I aspired to, and what I felt I could achieve.  Now, I hear people speak of me as a theory whiz, somewhat in the same vein as they did Sean, but it doesn't comfort me at all.  I can regurgitate what I have been taught with ease, but I can't extrapolate.  Is learning really the ability to regurgitate information, or is it the internalization of that information and the ability to turn it into something new?

I think it's the latter, and that is a destination I've not yet arrived at.  Hell, I don't even know where to go to buy a ticket!  I've been to the top conservatories.  I've seen what they teach.  I've seen the people learning it.  I may have the potential for that, but it is still, as of yet, unrealized.

Am I doing the right thing?  Should I give it all up and just reach for the money and financial security that I know awaits me if I follow a different path?  I desperately crave validation and encouragement from meaningful sources.  I appreciate friends who tell me I can do it, but I get none of that from people who have been out there and have a more meaningful frame of reference.

Should I turn away from my current path, or should I follow my dream with blind faith that I'm doing the right thing?

Maybe the answer is to be found in the question itself...