Excuse the ego trip, but every so often I just gotta remind myself why I’m doing it all. Here we go

One day, when I finally grow up, I’d like to be a magnificent artist. I will invite the world to my music performances and surprise friends with my hard-earned talent. They’ll fall over backwards, clamber for attention, and boast, “I’ve been friends with him since we were young!” Some will lick their lips, pin me in corridors and politely demand to know how I managed to succeed. I’ll tell them what I know then, what I am learning now.

Some will hate me, because I will embody their misplaced dreams. They’ll acrimoniously curse me in their thoughts, claim that I never deserved it, that I’ve taken shortcuts, that I’ve sold out. For the record of these irascible folks, I’m doing my work now. My best, in fact.

In this dream, the violin is my favoured instrument, but I am also comfortably adept on piano, guitar, drums and the strange instruments I’ve collected in my travels. I’ve spent a long time diligently practicing for the day that these skills are needed. As a rule, I spend at least one hour a day on violin, piano, guitar and percussion, studying the theory and enthusiastically conjuring up new interpretations of it as I become more musically erudite. As a result of the daily joy of rehearsal, this time often spills over into my free time, but I welcome it.

I have a private, spacious rehearsal room equipped with the instruments I need on wall-mounted racks. A selection of effects pedals, amplifiers, cables and devices surrounds a central computer station in a half-moon. The computer is a dual-screen Mac, reliable and sturdy in the task of producing music. All the software is licensed, and I seldom have processing problems because the majority of the music I make is elementary, essential, simple and beautiful in this simplicity.

Adjacent to this room is an acoustically treated vocal recording booth, separated from the control room by a glass window. There is a piano somewhere inside. The next room is a relaxation space, complete with a beverage fridge, espresso coffee machine, comfortable, colourful beanbags, mattresses and Thai axe cushions. There is also a messy art space somewhere in the complex, with a design computer and printer, loads of resources like marker pens, oil and fabric paint, canvasses and stationery. Paintings of mine hang from the walls of the whole complex, but not for long. When people like them, I give them away and make more. The whole studio has an aura of privacy, security, fun and creative freedom.

I have friends from many circles. They respect my ability to push on, even in times when public acclaim is absent. They recognize that I live for the art, and it is the spirit of free creation itself that inspires me to be magnificent. They understand that my comfortable surroundings are not the cause of my success, but the result. They acknowledge that I would be equally persistent regardless of the circumstances of my life, because they have seen me persevere around every obstacle that I have encountered. They are inspired, and when they compassionately remind me so, I thank them and I myself remember that I have them to thank for their enthusiastic encouragement.

I travel every so often, mostly on self-financed music tours. Sometimes I break even, sometimes I profit. I maintain a consistently sharper business acumen by providing only the highest quality performances to fans, preferring to lose profit than to deliver a performance that is not excellent. Even after all these years, profit still doesn’t mean everything to me, because I know in my heart that I have lived through many lifetimes learning to deal only in the enduring currencies of time, attention and love.

I have a strong desire to be anonymous. Fame is idolatry. But it comes with the territory of delivering the emotional impact of music in live performance. I make every effort to separate the gap between the performer and the audience. People will take photographs of us who are playing, sometimes recognize us in public, but it is manageable. I use my opportunities to remind others that the critical difference between the self-actualized person and the hopeful dreamer is the amount of raw, persistent effort put in over time.

The scale of these dreams is not important. Whether my dream of touring the world becomes a dream of touring the West Coast of South Africa are as unimportant as the differences between using brown and white sugar in my coffee. The tangible, commonplace experiences of being a musician are what I crave. The packing of gear, the solution of wiring problems, the creative decision making that is presented with every new venue, and the pat I give myself on the back after every car ride back home, usually alone. I sometimes require applause, but receiving it serves to remind me that my egoic needs will always cloud my artistic abilities, and I react by remaining humble. In the face of the inexplicable, I realize in truth that my activity during this brief era is too insignificant to even be considered successful or otherwise. In this dream, I have overcome myself and am free to be a unique, hard-working and honest channel for the spectacular art which is bound to come from this exciting, progressive time in history. All these things are what I see when I look into the vacant black eyes of my muse, my logo, my program, my friend, Pravda23.