So Much Left Unsaid That We'll Never Get to Say

As is almost always the case, I've been feeling a crazy pressure to write lately, but don't really know where to start or where to focus my energy. Posts on here to keep me going? Focus on the zine? Go back to work on short stories? Start doing academic research again to buff up my CV?!

Working a (mostly) 9-5 job makes downtime a precious commodity, so even if I'm devoting time to one specific project, I can't shake the feeling that I'm letting myself fall behind by not working on songs or demos or whatever of the above-mentioned things I'm putting to the side for the moment. It doesn't always shows outwardly, but I put a fair amount of pressure on myself to keep up a steady creative output because I am terrified that if I ever stop I will lose everything that makes me interesting to people and become boring and useless. I know that stashing a black ball of anxiety pressure in my gut isn't necessarily the most healthy approach to life, but I also know that I need it to help push me into writing. It's a give and take where I occasionally need people to remind that it's okay to relax and not fret over the fact that I haven't finished my zine or EP, but I'm also well aware that without the self-inflicted pressure to meet deadlines I won't do shit.

As you can definitely tell, I'm mostly coaching myself through my thoughts. I need that sometimes too.

I've recently been on a big Descendents binge that immediately turned into an ALL binge. They're both in the pantheon of "Timmy Bands", as has been well-documented on this blog, but they sort of fell to the wayside recently until I had a moment where a couple of things clicked and I remembered that there's a spot in my heart that only those two bands can fill.

The Descendents are faster, gritty and silly whereas All has slower, more heartfelt melodic moments that would never fit in the other band. Both have their place with me, but the latter in particular has really been vibing lately.

I'm going to pull a very classic I, Musical Genius move and end my post with an ALL song. I used to like this song a lot when the main things I had to worry about were being poor and sad about girls. Now this song just makes me think about my dead dog. Kind of wish I could back to a time when problems were smaller and manageable.