Music and burnout
-----------------------

So I do experimental music, mostly algorithmic
music/live coding in TidalCycles. It's something I
love doing but I've had a really up and down
experience with this year.

I haven't had the motivation to make music for a
long time. I haven't been able to feel any joy or
spark of creativity in months.

On the other hand, that's part of what it means
for creativity to get hard, right? You sometimes
just have to push through even when you don't feel
like there's any kind of point to any of it.

I'm performing tomorrow night. First live
performance in a year, though I've made over a
hundred videos of live coding in 2021. Like I
said, it's a really mixed year so far.

I'm currently trying to write a monologue for this
performance that I can have playing while I'm
coding the accompanying music.

It's probably going to be sad and introspective
because god what other feelings do I have,
lately. I'd felt so hopeful at the beginning of
the year that all of this would be under control
and over by now, with the vaccine rollouts and
everything, but that's not how things turned out.

Today hasn't been as bad as a lot of days
lately. I helped finish putting together a desk
for my partner, Tor, and generally have had some
space to think and breathe a bit. But there's
still this sadness lurking at the back of my mind,
like some stalking predator waiting to strike. I
feel the panic and despair and hopelessness ready
to overtake me at any moment.

There's a lot of reasons for that. A lot of very
hard reasons for that.

But I'm trying. God am I trying to get through.

The solstice is a day of hope, of renewal, of
rebirth. I'm ready for hope. I want to make more
hope.