Good Anxiety.

The title of this blog will be weird for some people I know. My darling wife has anxieties, mostly about public speaking, but all based upon public embarrassment. There is nothing good about her experience of anxiety. A friend of mine who loves to play music gets panic attacks. One of my sisters spends large amounts of her life with a feeling of undefinable anxiety. But this last Monday I had the opportunity to play a gig with my band, Sam's Cross, for the first time in nearly a year, and felt the good anxiety again.

The good anxiety is a feeling of your nervous system at a higher level, a feeling of being excited and alive, taking risks to achieve something really worthwhile. I have on several occasions made a complete arse of myself on stage, and that piercing feeling of failure and shame is not something quickly forgotten. But that very risk adds to the feeling of joy when you do well, particularly when what you are doing makes people happy.

The gig in question occurred in the basement bar that a guy named Bill had built for himself in the house that he grew up in. The bar actually is in the exact same part of the house as his bed when he was a boy. On Mondays this bar is open to friends, and friends of friends, and one of our band members is at least a friend of a friend. In fact, this is a public house in the very original sense of the word, supported by donations, policed simply by the people in the bar, and a very nice place it is too.

The last time the band played we had a drummer and a banjo player, both who have gone from the band, one quitting and one being ousted for not showing up. They have been replaced by an accordion player, and this was therefore her first gig with us. The nervousness therefore is not simply for myself, but for others as well. Those who have played sports, or sailed a ship, or been part of any group that has to work together is aware of the connection and fondness that develops within a group (if it goes well) but I submit that nothing builds that bond more than a band. In a song everyone in the band relies on everyone else completely, and at every moment throughout the song. Everyone must share a feeling, a rhythm, everyone shares the telling of a story. If it falls apart everyone shares the shame ("Play something you know" has been yelled at me on stage) but if it works everyone shares in the explosion of applause that washes over you and makes everything feel good.

So, that moment before the first song, looking out over a crowd of strangers and a few special friends is a glorious one for me, it is the best of life about to happen. As a result, for the last week I have felt somehow more complete as a human being, a feeling of correctness. Is this the thing that I'm supposed to do? Probably. So I should get off me arse and practice some more.

Genuine People

Twice in the last few weeks that I can recall my darling wife and I have been called "Genuine people." This is a complement, and we were grateful for it at the time, although as with many ordinary phrases I found myself baffled by it. What is a genuine person? Surely everyone is a genuine person, an actual real-life human being? There must be some deeper meaning to this.

I suppose the opposite of a genuine person is a faker, someone who pretends to be someone they are not. So perhaps a genuine person is someone who simply does not try to be someone, but simply is someone. But how could you tell? How can you tell that the actions of a person are genuinely themselves or an attempt to be someone else? Perhaps the genuine nature of someone is that they try to appear in the best light? Are not those people who spend large amounts of time and effort on their appearance, who try to say only the most impressive things, who are excited by connection to fame and celebrity genuinely interested in looking good, being cool and famous?

Perhaps what constitutes a genuine person is someone who simply does not change very much from situation to situation? I think that might well be true of myself, and although it is well documented that I am moody that seems to be internal rather than externally driven. I do not try very hard to be someone different in different situations, but I fail to see how that benefits myself very much. Some adaptability might well be advantageous for me, but I can see how that is helpful for others.

So, the compliment of being a genuine person might well simply come down to that the other person is pleased that you are extremely predictable.

Hope.

At the last election I decided to vote for hope. I chose to vote for someone with little political experience, almost no experience in running anything because he had a message of hope. He thought things could be made better, and he had ideas that he said he would implement that I agreed would make things better. I didn't know that he would do so, I didn't know if he would win, but I wanted to hope.
Today I read my friend Dade's blog, in which he put on his doomsday hat. While reading Dade's blog is always worthwhile I don't want to really go into his post in detail (although I like it). I want to discuss humanity's fascination with doomsday, the End of it All. I think this fascination has been with us from the beginning of thought, the first myths of most peoples all talk about the Good Old Days when men were gods and people were moral and so on. There's a thought that seems constant throughout history that things are in decline.
This feeling of decline has led to predictions of doomsday throughout history, as you can tell from our present situation, they've all been wrong. Here's a handy-dandy list for some perspective. But when you look at the history of humanity it is largely a story of steady progress in terms of rights, standards of living, longevity, health, education, freedom and peace. Right now is the best ever time to be alive, I truly believe it to be so. Here and here are my reasons for thinking so, and they seem to be good reasons for me. The crises we are facing are far lesser crises than we have faced before, with greater resources with which to face them.
This is The Hopeful Muser, I voted for hope, I choose to hope and I highly recommend it. If you are worried about global warming, do what you can about it and let go of worry. If you are terrified about over-population, don't have kids and support third world education for women and feel good that you are helping. If you are doing what you can then worrying achieves nothing. If you are worrying and not doing anything, then frankly, you are a blowhard. if you aren't worried and aren't doing anything, then you are probably happy.