On Better People

Better People^TM can play the piano really well. They know all the quick things and the slow things and the flashy things. But they're not just playing machines - they've soldiered through intense drama with a broken wrist/family/relationship, so now their musical interpretation has depths you can't even begin to grasp. To support these yogic guru -depth emotions, Better People^TM read a lot of serious books and watch serious series. This helps them be better than the people who read and watch the normal shit. The serious stuff has helped them grow as persons, and by now they've reached towering heights.

Better People^TM have their own chamber music festival, a concert series or at least an opera house. They know how to write grant applications in ways that make cultural foundations send truckloads of money to their direction - the projects Better People^TM do are so new, so now, so inspiring that the foundations compete for their support. Press is charmed to write lovely things, and the festival/concert/thing will continue next year with more money and prestige.

Better People^TM also practice regularly and take care of their physical and mental health. They have a balanced diet, but in parties they can be relaxed about food because they're not uptight, just annoyingly Better. Probably they shit rainbows. And because they're balanced, they don't burn out. They have a lot of work, but not too much, and they don't stress and worry and panic because music is really about being in harmony with your soul. Somehow they're in harmony with their wallets as well, and they make a decent living out of music while you starve.

Look around you. They're everywhere, these Better People^TM, taking over the world while you struggle in the dark and envy their things. They're your colleagues, your friends, and oops, it looks like you're one of them. Because there's someone somewhere thinking, oh how can she get all those nice things - her life looks so easy and polished and lovely. I wish I had that.

'I wish I had that' is good because it makes you aspire to things, it makes you work and hope and reach for something new. But it turns toxic when envy gets involved. In the music world - this tiny bubble we all try to work in - it's so easy to see others doing great, and so, so easy to see the jobs other people got and you didn't. And it's easy to forget the jobs you already have. The gigs you got, the projects you did. How proud you could be of this corner you've cleaned for yourself, this career that you've nurtured and fretted over. 'I wish I had that' could be replaced with 'I'm glad I've got this' and the Better People^TM would start looking more like normal ones.

Of course I might be wrong - there might really be people out there who shit rainbows.

Well. I'd pay to see that.