The Reason

I read somewhere that Amanda Palmer didn't get into music for the music but just as a way to connect with others. Ben Corman, a fantastic writer wrote this post about how he's a writer because that's the only thing he can be. And that lead me to a realization about myself. Everything decision I've made was based on connecting with others. My whole life, my reason for everything was around that goal. From soccer, to yearbook, to AcaDeca,the AmeriCorps and most definitely my reason for being in music was in order to be a part of something.

It's the reason why I'm here in Portland, the reason why I prefer cities, the reason why I love the Internet so much. I suppose there are those people who prefer to live their lives in their own bubble, who can allow the world to carry on without them having to be a part of it. But I want to be a part of everything. I hate sleeping because I know that things are happening that I am not a part in. The world is rapidly changing and I want to be in the midst of it. One of my greatest fears is to miss out on what is going on in our day and age. In the twenties I would have been a poet or a suffragette, the fifties and sixties I would have been involved in civil rights and peace protests. It's a good thing I wasn't alive in the seventies because that was all crazy parties and drugs. Ten years ago it would have been all about the tech boom but now, now it's the Internet and music. Now it's media and communication. And that's what I'm going to be in.

I don't want to live in a bubble. I want to be in the middle of the vortex.

Music is nothing without the people involved. The musicians need the artists as much as the fans need the music. Music has always been about "this is who I am" and the people who relate to that. And the Internet has taken it one step further. No longer is it just the musicians saying "this is who I am" but now the fan can say "and this is who I am".

Sam Potts is a guy in Boston. I'm think he has some sort of marketing company, but I'm not really sure. But he's a friend of Jonathan Coulton and I follow JCo on Twitter. When JCo tweeted about Sam Potts's new art project, Twitter on Paper, I listened. I followed Sam Potts and filled out the forms. Twitter on Paper was a project he was doing where anyone could request any of the tweets he had done and he would write them and send to you. It was like backwards technology and I loved it. I requested three, received them and they were fantastic. The best part was the note attached that had his address and said you were free to send anything you wanted to him. And even when the project ended, I continued to follow him. He's a really interesting guy and when I posted pictures of my framed Twitter on Papers he responded. When I asked him about his new project because it was going to launch on my birthday he explained and wished me a happy birthday in advance. Without the Internet, I never would have known who Sam Potts was. But my day is made with those kinds of connections. For me, life is all about those connections. I adore Sam Potts but I've never met him and I probably never will. And that's okay.

People scoff at social networking like blogs, Facebook and Twitter. They don't understand why you would want to know what everyone is doing. Why some lady would write about her five cats, or some guy the car he's building, or some kid about her love of music. But all we're doing is saying, "this is what I'm about, what are you about?" Because this blog, music, the AmeriCorps, and putting myself out there is what I'm about. What are you about?