I guess I just wasn’t made for these times…a classic Beach Boys song, written and recorded by the late, great Brian Wilson in the late 1960s. Brian Wilson heard whole songs, symphonies, in his head and spent most of his time during the 1960s, holed up in a studio trying to commit what he heard to tape (before the digital age, music was recorded to physical tape). I’ve read that he even heard the four-part harmonies that the Beach Boys were famous for and often recorded all the parts himself. People thought he was crazy spending all his days and nights in the studio, to the point that he sent the rest of the band out on tour so he could stay home writing more songs and perfecting his studio craft. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic, later in life, but maybe he wasn’t made for his time… his melodies and songwriting were way ahead of his time.
I recently watched ‘the film At Eternitys Gate’ about the life of Vincent Van Gogh. He felt like he had to paint. Constantly. It was the only thing that made sense to him. He believed It was God’s gift to him. He spent his life in abject poverty, unable to pay rent, unable to feed himself. He wore the same clothes, made his own brushes and scrounged paper and canvases. He loved nature, and would go out every morning and walk for miles until some sight or view grabbed his attention enough that he had to stop and paint it. He had no interest in the other things in life that most people craved. He was out of his own time. Theres a quote where he says something along the lines that people in his time didn’t understand him or like his paintings, but maybe he was painting for people in the future. He believed he was giving people a glimpse of something bigger and better than their own world in his paintings. Eternity?
I read about a 14th Century Monk, Thomas A Kempis. He stated that God offers us his love and an eternity with Him, yet most people can’t be bothered to accept that gift or pursue God. Most are more interested in the fickle, material things of this world. We work hard in jobs we hate to spend our wages on material pleasures that are gone in an instant, when we have an eternal reward on offer to us freely if we would pursue the things of God.
I quite often feel like Brian Wilson and Van Gough (not that I’m claiming to be a genius). I’ve often felt like I don’t fit in. I’m not like most people. I sometimes feel displaced. When I was younger, I had no interest in getting a job or having a career, I just wanted to make music. I wanted to play drums in bands. I wanted to hang out with creative people. Some used to say to me “what are you going to do for money?” or “you can’t live like that; you need to have a ‘proper job’.” I never understood. Creating music wasn’t a job for me; it was something I loved doing and needed to do, to express myself. Years later, I got sucked into the music industry machine that makes you believe that music/art is about having a career and earning money, making money for other people, being successful, being famous! These days, maybe the pendulum has swung a bit allowing young people to make music without signing their copyright away, or having to pay for expensive studio time, in order to release their own music.
Personally, this is what I have started doing recently, and I feel happy. Creating music and floating it out on the internet for people to discover. I feel like my old self. But I still feel like there’s so much in me and I can’t get it out. I don’t feel the isolation and loneliness that Van Gough did, and I’m aware that there is an Eternity after death that Thomas A Kempis talked about.
But I still feel like I just wasn’t made for these times, on occasion!
