Why Learn New Skills Is Worth the Painful Challenging

I want to sing on stage for you. I don’t want to dance around to my tracks, solely as a DJ, with no physical live input. It’s awkward. I’d probably get used to it. Worse though, it’s not a gift from the present moment, flowing in through my body. My electronic tracks flew threw me moments ago, months ago. I captured a feeling that we can resurrect, to which we may dance the night away as it can take us places. That’s nice. When I sing and play for you live though, that is right here, right now. That brings us together in this one precious moment. It’s fierce creation, intoxicating, chilling. Hello goosebumps. I want you to feel the vibrations leaving my lips, entering your body, so we know we are one.

Will I ever feel fully satisfied performing my electronic music? Will I find a way to perform live along with the track and have it feel raw and not just a paint-by-numbers kind of performance. When I perform acoustic, every sound is hanging on my move, I can drag out the pauses and tickle the air before slicing through it with my voice, taking you by surprise, taking myself by surprise. Part of me wants to give up on figuring out how to perform live with my tracks. Part of me whispers to keep going. We’ll have a breakthrough. We’ll be excited.

I’ve seen people perform live with the Ableton Live Push 2 pad, which I have been learning how to use at the pace of a slightly wounded and possibly lazy, or perhaps mainly resistant snail — read The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield if you think you’re a lazy or blocked artist. Why so much resistance here? Why does it almost physically pain me to turn on the Push and practice performing a song with it, creating a live beat? Too many buttons? Too many cables? Would I rather be fine tuning a song on the computer with my mouse and headphones, rather than creating bigger loops through speakers? Would I rather be improving at singing or mixing songs than training my slow fingers to drum quickly and memorize patterns. Would I rather _____?

If I’m asking the ‘rather’ question, what answer that wins? I would rather be what? Eating? Sleeping? Running? Doing yoga? Reading? Answering emails? Meeting clients for coffee? What’s so great that it wins the arm wrestle with the Push, or any other challenge that presents itself along my creation path? What is your challenge right now? Are you up for it?

What happens when we master a skill, or even just make a little bit of progress? Usually elation, celebration, play time, joy! The challenge is an obstacle, just like a puzzle, a brain teaser, an obstacle course, a dare, a finish line ahead. Sure, we can sit down, turn it off, walk away. Maybe we don’t care about it, genuinely. Usually though, I don’t start running a race I don’t intend to finish. Do you? Sometimes we make mistakes but when we do, we know it. We’re instantly up and out of there because we know it is so wrong for us there is no question. But when we question.

We question and consider quitting when it gets hard, not when it gets wrong. When it’s wrong, we’re done. When it’s hard, we’re wondering. If you’re wondering, keep going until you know. Yes? So I will learn this god damn push because it’s still bothering me. If you can’t stop thinking about it, do it. Right? So I’ll do it until the curiosity, annoying desire, taunting is gone from my head. Either I will love this thing or it’s not for me but by the time I know it’s not for me, I’ll really know because I’ll know how to use it fully and I will simply not be interested in it. It will be easily forgotten. You’re done when you can forget it. Until then, keep going.

LOVE,
CHA🍍WILDE