First Mixtape, First Tattoo
This past week was a really productive one. I’ve been on a roll creatively, but this phenomena is a fairly new one for me. Since my therapy sessions have ended, I’ve managed to stay focused on my goals. Nothing and no one has gotten in my way. In terms of drive and productivity, I’m not the person I was even six months ago, and that’s been a difficult thing to wrap my mind around. I feel like I’ve rewired my brain to be efficient and mindful in everything I do. I wake up every day and make strides in at least one of my main projects, but it still catches me off guard how much I end up getting done in one day. I’m constantly improving my methodology, and I’m paying attention to details. I plot, plan, and then act. I follow my intuition, and it feels liberating. Once again, there’s a caveat with all this, I’m only succeeding on my own terms. I’m making progress in the lanes that I believe will bring me the most fulfillment in my life. However, this doesn’t equate to monetary gain, nor does it guarantee me any stability in my immediate future.
I’m hoping of course, that this will soon change, and I’m working on ways to remedy my financial situation. I can’t help that I live in a capitalistic society where I’m forced to monetize my hobbies if that’s all I want to do in life. I just hope that if I end up needing a more typical job that the passion and motivation I currently possess won’t fade away. All I want is to be debt free, make rent, and eat well. If that could be taken care of I’m confident that I would be able satisfy my other wants in this world. Owning a nice car doesn’t interest me. New clothes are nice, but I could do without them. I understand what will nourish my soul, and it has nothing to do with commercial goods or with monetary wealth. Materialism has been the tool of capitalism, and I am attempting to resist its temptations.
In the past week I managed, with the help of a bunch of my friends, to put out my debut mixtape on SoundCloud. This project was a long time in the making. I have always been a huge fan of hip-hop and rap music, and I started messing around with my own music back in high school. However, it wasn’t until college that I started to take it more serious and began to search out like-minded individuals to collaborate with. The name of the mixtape, ‘The Mission Hill EP’, pays homage to the neighborhood where I’ve had most of my college experiences. Most of the songs on the tape are representative of another time, in the sense that they don’t represent how I’m feeling these days. Nonetheless, I’m still really proud of putting it out into the universe. I know many people weren’t aware that I ever intended to be a rapper, but it’s always been a dream. I just realized that it was a tangible dream, so long as I worked at it consistently and asked the right people for help. I find myself thinking this way a lot, and I stopped caring what others would think of me if I stepped outside my comfort zone. It was a personal milestone.
The other milestone I reached this past week was a much more unexpected one. No, I still don’t have any tattoos on my body, but I was able to give someone else my first tattoo. The person who allowed me to do this to them is the same person teaching me the craft of tattooing. He’s a local artist I met doing some volunteer work for a nonprofit a few months back. He randomly DM’ed me a few weeks later asking if I wanted to learn how to tattoo. I had never considered becoming a tattoo artist, but this was an opportunity I could not turn down. I began meeting up with him in order to get shown the ropes. His level of trust in me is something that I’ll be forever grateful for. The first day we met up he let me take one of his old tattoo machines home to practice on fruit with. That took a fair amount of trust on his end, but it took even more when he offered to be my first tattoo canvas. I was caught off guard, but I agreed, I see that kind of offer as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. These days I’m not really in the position to be turning down such offers. He tells me that there’s good money in tattooing, especially with me knowing so many college aged individuals. Only time will tell if I end up lending credibility to that statement. I intend on following through.
I’m pursuing a lot of endeavors at the moment. Sometimes I need to take a step back to breathe. The quarantine lifestyle feels devoid of celebration, lacking of closure to any given project. No parties, no shows, just more time. Time to think, to ruminate on what could be, or what could have been. I like to focus on the former. I’ve gotten the ball rolling in many regards, and it doesn’t want to stop. I see no reason to make it do so.
-zcmega