Know When to Take a Break

Walking Away

If you haven’t noticed, I have taken a long break from the blog. A few months even. Now, to the “professional blogger” out there, having a break in content that long is “blog suicide”. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t consider myself a “professional” blogger. Blogger… yes. Professional?

What am I a professional of? Sometimes taking a break can make questions like that a little more answerable. Whether we are suffering writer’s block, wallowing in self doubt, experiencing an artistic identity crisis, or even in a depression, sometimes all the tricks in the world don’t work save for one… taking a break.

Taking a Break Can Grant Us Clarity

Sometimes we forget who we are. We’re going along and all is well and for some reason something changes as we try new things and discover others. Habits form. New habits replace those. Even newer habits can replace those. It’s sometimes difficult to remember the original piece of stone that we were chiseling away at to reveal ourselves to the world.

We can get lost in expectations of others and the hustle and bustle of where we want to be in life. Our desire to be better and have better can sometimes be our downfall, our Achilles heal.

That’s what vacation is for. I don’t mean vacation to the Bahamas (although that wouldn’t suck), but rather a vacation from who we are now, from what we are doing, from where we are going, and how we are getting there.

If there is one thing I have learned in life, who we are, where we are going, and how we’re getting there is not always good. The one true way to examine ourselves, where we want to be, and how to get there is to just stop. Stop everything. Peace and quiet and the sweet relief of no expectations in ourselves or from others. Just… take a break.

And It Was Revealed Unto Him…

Taking a break can grant new vision. Hindsight is always 20/20. Foresight is cloudy at best. We can have an idea of what we see ahead, we can imagine what we see ahead, and we can even try to make what we see ahead a reality.

The truth is, sometimes we are so concerned with we see ahead and how to make it a reality that we are blind to what we see right now and what we have seen in the past. The future is important, but not at the expense of the present or the past.

Knowing where we are, and where we have been are just as important variables to musical careers as where we are going.

Don’t be too busy to see where you are. Don’t forget where you have been. Taking a break can grant us clarity of those things and maybe it’s exactly what we need a dose of.

New Directions

Having clarity of mind about the present and the past, our accomplishments and our progresses, can unlock the clarity needed to realize our ambitions. Taking a break can be a vital tool for just that.

Think of it like a map. When we are in a hurry, we grab a map, find out where we are, and scramble to find the quickest route to where we want to go. It’s the hurry part that really limits our vision.

Flatten that thing out. Sit down and be calm, your taking a break, you have no place to be. As you run your hand over some of the places you have been, and smooth out the map, you see roads you recognize and discover new ones that your tunnel vision didn’t allow you to see before. The map you are looking at suddenly reveals to you a multitude of possibilities when before you were just looking at how to get from point A to point B as fast as you can.

You notice dead ends you turned around in. You see paths you could have taken. Shortcuts you took suddenly don’t look all that interesting. Parks pop out. Downtown areas come alive. New ways to go and new things to see become evident.

Pick one. Hell, pick three. You have just been given the clarity needed to find new directions, and for musicians, new directions can be gold, baby.

And Thus Ends the Funk

Last but not least in this post, being a musician can sometimes just be flat out depressing. Sometimes we hit a creative wall so hard it hurts. We can feel uncreative. We can feel unaccepted. We can feel like we have lost our touch. Sometimes we are so discouraged by our lack of creativity that we let it affect our personal lives, our moods, our minds, and our day to day.

Take a break. Be a human being. Know when to not be a musician. Go visit old friends. Go visit new friends. Go walk in the park. Maybe you hate walking in the park, at least when your there you can realize, “I hate walking in the park”. Remember who you are and be you. See your family. Family is always good for reminding us where we came from and even what motivates us to touch peoples lives with our music.

My name is Heath Close, and I have been taking a break. I feel so much better.

http://twitter.com/btheoret Brian Theoret

Great post Heath. Really got me thinking about a lot of things. Thanks! I am realizing now that this is what I've been doing this past year…stepping back, taking a look at who I am and what I'm all about and now just recently have jumped back into the musical swing of things. Thanks for the incite Heath. Always appreciated. Welcome back!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_W4GI6AYZOWYDAAEQETWRB2G76I illimex

I have been doing this for the past few months, thinking about all the work I’ve put into getting and maintaining music contacts and whether or not this would shed doubt on my from those perspectives. I have discovered that to some, it has indeed. To others, ones that actually talk to me on a daily basis and who I am friends with, it has not. I haven’t produced a full track in some time, however, daily I still play around and read on music and do musical things so although I am not full on into a project, I am assured that in spite of my absence from the “scene” and in spite of not actually sitting down to write any music, I haven’t lost my identity as a musician and this is important for others to note as well. I am an electrician by trade, and there is great money to be made in that, but the money to be made in bedroom production is something most chase and chase and never find. Knowing that I still love to make music, still read about it and learn about it every day, and still have a job that could forever negate this particular chase and yet not giving up on it is reassuring always. I have taken months off of work and been poor for long periods because of this love, always knowing I could be making good money, but also knowing that what I love to do isn’t for money or fame or anything of the sort. It’s because music moves me and I wish to move others in that same respect with my own music as well….to show them what I feel instead of telling them, to allow others to experience what is going on inside of me rather then just observing. I’ve been back at the electrical bit for a while but the great thing about taking a break is that you always come home with an idea for something, and you put it down and walk away and then, a few months later, after reading, saving ideas, learning, you come to the DAW refreshed with lots of material to sift through, new knowledge of the processes, and most importantly, a fresh perspective. Taking a break is mandatory and every established artist does it. Time is short, yes, but what good is it to be wasting that time in depression or loss of identity when you could be using it to make some money to support yourself for the next go around? Heath is right. A break is a good thing.