Why?

On her blog Chocolate Phoenix, Sariah occasionally posts about being a musician. In Check your Ego, she writes:

The hardest thing about being a musician is learning when to let go. We are taught to play with perfection. Anything less than perfect just will not do. That is why we will spend weeks and weeks learning one piece of music. We will spend an hour in the practice room perfecting one measure. We do not stop until it’s perfect, and we aren’t happy until we can do it perfectly. I don’t know that it’s entirely healthy, but that’s the way it is. So when something happens and you have to just let it go, it’s hard. And whatever little bit of an ego you had is now completely shot.

What she said.

Growing up, if I couldn't master or learn something quickly, I lost interest and moved on. In school, when it came to those subjects I had trouble with--Math and Economics, for example--I took the minimum requirements and then went on to something I was good at. When I didn't understand something, like Economics, I could still manage a C in the class.

Sometimes that meant I wouldn't take chances by following through on something I enjoyed but wasn't particularly good at. In junior high school I belonged to the Art Studio and served as president my last year there. When I got to high school, I didn't take any art classes because I knew I didn't have any "real talent" in art, and I thought I'd get a poor grade, which would pull down my GPA. Of course, looking at some of my surviving artwork from that period, I probably would have done just fine in an art class and might have learned to appreciate and encourage my right brain capabilities a lot earlier in life.

At the beginning of my junior year in high school I went to the band director and expressed an interest in learning to play the flute. He handed me a battered school rental and began giving me lessons. Thirty-four years later, I'm still playing.

Have I mastered it? No.

Will I ever be another Rampal or Galway? No.

Has my closet perfectionist gone away? Of course not. I have to deal with him every day of my life.

Can it be frustrating? Yes.

Do I have to work hard to maintain the level of even middling amateur? Yes.

Does it bring me joy? Yes.

And that, my friends, is why I've never walked away from my flute for very long.