Money
I had a couple of conversations this weekend that bothered me a bit. There’s this whole thing in our first-world society where we only do things for money, and I just don’t agree with that premise at all. Of course, I’m mindful of some people having to make ends meet and being fortunate that I don’t have to worry about that right now.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a need to make money. I have a day job and will hold onto that because of the flexibility it allows me. But with the things I do after work, those things don’t have to be about money.
I had one conversation with a drum teacher at the place I take lessons at. The conversation was at 3 AM, so he was being a bit more open than usual. He essentially was asking me why I am paying $135/month to take lessons when I’m good enough to just watch videos on YouTube and learn that way?
The other moment was a remark from a Phish fan when I showed them the progress on the Tableau dashboard. They said, "Oh you’re going to make money after this is done!"
In both instances, I kind of felt repulsed. It’s like this whole idea of doing something because you like doing it or it adds personal value and happiness to your life is just not something people can wrap their heads around.
The drummer was confused. Don’t you want to write a hit song? No, I do not want to play with the intent of getting good just so I can write a catchy song that will have millions of hits on Spotify and YouTube. That doesn’t interest me in the slightest. If I were doing that, my happiness and wellbeing would be tied to someone else’s perception of my skills.
He went onto talk about how he figured out the formula for writing a hit song. That was his drive and goal. To me that seems like a crazy waste of time. I kind of just want to be a good drummer in my own basement and use it as an outlet after work. I want to take lessons every week because my teacher is really great, and I learn something new from him every lesson. I like that I am held accountable by going to a lesson every Wednesday. If a hit song came out of this organically, where I got good and then played with friends and we came up with something we really liked, then that’s obviously fine. I’m just not interested in going on tour or doing what a full-time musician needs to do to make a living. I am content with this being a hobby.
For the Tableau goal, there is some bit of self-serving attitude here. I wanted to take on a big project with something I’m passionate about that would give back in a way to a community that has been really inclusive and given me an outlet. I saw someone do it for the Beatles so I wanted to do something for Phish. For my personal career, I want to be able to show the finished product to people I might interview with, that I’m capable of doing and managing a data project from beginning to end. I will definitely be sharing it with my professors when I’m done. For my personal life, I’d like to be able to share it with people in the community so there’s a fun and interactive way to see Phish data. Maybe someone will be influenced by this and they’ll do something of their own. Either way, this is a fun way to push myself forward.
So in a way, I guess you could say I’m doing that for money. But I am not driven by it. Neither of those things were born out of a want or need for money. In fact, I am probably going to spend over $1k on getting the Tableau dashboard done, and will likely not see any return.
If our self-worth and interests are tied to money, we will likely feel worse about ourselves when we don’t make a lot. If we are driven by things that make us happy and feel good, we typically end up being better off for it in the end. I definitely saw that as the case after the family reunion this month.
There’s a Trey quote that comes to mind that I’ll end on:
Indeed, though they never did return to Plattsburgh, the Clifford Ball would serve as the blueprint for a series of annual festival campouts in out-of-the-way places. What Phish did would inspire such multi-band rock festivals as Bonnaroo and Coachella. In fact, many of the staff and crew who worked on Phish’s festivals brought their expertise to those events and others like it. That the Clifford Ball exceeded beyond anyone’s expectations served as testimony to Phish’s visionary outlook and perseverance.
“I think there are solutions to all logistical problems – any kind of problem – if you sit down and think about it long enough,” said Anastasio. “So many people are just naysayers. Take Plattsburgh. As soon as we started saying, ‘We’re going to do this concert in Plattsburgh…” ‘Plattsburgh?! That’s nearly in Canada. Nobody’s gonna go there. There’s nothing there, it’s this tiny little town. What are you, crazy? Let’s do it at Randall’s Island, then we’ll rake in the big bucks.’ That’s the general attitude: Get the money. You have to get away from that.”