Hi, ranting, and a video

[inFlux]

Wow, so this is where you've all been hiding.

I'm still a little new to the "MBTI light," but my personal growth has accelerated so dramatically since discovering it. I honestly can't believe I'm posting an intro message on a forum, but I guess realizing I'm not insane, plus finding a bunch of people with similar brain software brings a little extrovert out in me. (If you can call sitting at your computer in your crappy apartment being extroverted).

Warning: The following is long and it will not offend me in the slightest if you just want to skip to the bottom and watch a cool video featuring Fiona Apple and Quentin Tarantino talking about her songwriting process.

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Anyway, I'm a musician, actually. I say "actually" because I find this somewhat of a rarity, although not unheard of among INTPs. I actually think that playing music for most of my life has helped my Feeling developed. But I might actually be being too generous with that statement because in some ways, I think I was sort of lying to myself, convinced that I felt emotions because I was a musician. In the back of my mind, though, I knew something was "off." I was always the best musician I knew in middle school and high school. When I got to college, I was first chair trumpet in the jazz orchestra. I was 18; the other guys were juniors and seniors. I'm not saying this to brag, of course, because here comes the big "but": Why didn't I listen to music like everyone else? Why didn't I sit around listening to records and then talk with my friends about how *awesome* that album was because of how it made me feel? Well, first of all I had very few friends, but that's another story.

The real answer was that I didn't feel music the way they did. I loved music for *how it worked* and fuck, trumpet and piano were the only things that even made me any degree of cool. I picked up guitar at 15, too. I didn't have a teacher so I accidentally learned lefty on a righty guitar, but I'm pretty good at it. lol..fuckin...anyway, I guess I'm just kind of bummed a little bit now. To be honest, though, this discovery is actually making me reevaluate my approach to music overall. See, I always tried writing from my feelings. Of course my thoughts would contribute a ton, but for the past couple years I was often consciously shutting out my thoughts in a vain attempt to achieve a better composition. I haven't written a song in about 15 months (although I've composed other stuff) and that one isn't even fully done yet (about 90%, just need to finally decide on an arrangement). All because I was training myself to work against my strengths.

Anyway, I don't know why I started talking about all that, to be honest. Gonna scroll up and see where the fuck I was...

Oh yeah, I was just trying to tell you guys a little bit about myself. Saying "I'm a musician" wasn't sufficient, I guess.

So, other than that, I'm 32, I graduated college last year (after a few years off...another long story), I moved to the other side of the f-ing country where I hate it, I'm broke, have no friends, and have about $100k in student loans that my parents stupidly co-signed (although I completely appreciate their support). But my personal growth is great! Being lonely was kinda of interesting for a while. So was extended depression. Eventually those got boring and I've been down many paths since then, retaining some new knowledge and beliefs (though I'm not a fan of that word), and leaving some of it out, but always ready to jump back in if new evidence supports it.

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Anyway, sorry for the long read. If you skipped all that crap (wouldn't blame you), here's the Fiona video. I love how she describes her songwriting; it reminds me of how my truly inspired moments (there have been a few!) usually come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-DbWyLAQ2w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-DbWyLAQ2w&feature=related