Inner wealth

Oh it seemed forever stopped today
All the lonely hearts in London
Caught a plane and flew away
And all the best women are married
All the handsome men are gay
You feel deprived

Yeah are you questioning your size?
Is there a tumour in your humour,
Are there bags under your eyes?
Do you leave dents where you sit,
Are you getting on a bit?
Will you survive
You must survive

When there's no love in town
This new century keeps bringing you down
All the places you have been
Trying to find a love supreme
A love supreme

(Robbie Williams Supreme)

Anyone who knows me knows I have a very elective taste in music, well in most things really. You are just as likely to hear me listening to Mozart as I am to be the latest dance track. I like what I like and nothing can alter my taste. In the same breathe I don't avidly follow one or two musicians buying every album regardless. Hence my CD collection is as chaotic as my DVD one. It's not I'm not loyalty, it's a case of each film, disc book etc is judged on its individual merit.

Actually a lot of my life is ruled by that, I don't like to get stuck in a repetitive rut. I won't stick with just one take away, mainly because I find they get lazy with my order if I use them to often. i get dissatisfied very easily. It's that point that lead me to the song I quoted above. I don't think I am alone in having the patience of a gnat as my family so kindly put it. I have always been demanding, not on a spoilt fashion, but in seeking better. I always put it down to the performer in me, I was never just satisfied, any performance I was in I could only see the faults I had made. This was the same when I started writing and directing youth arts. The drive I had to do better was strong enough to carry not only myself but the entire cast and crew. My poor flat mate at the time will tell you that we were setting up till gone midnight the night before because I wasn't happy with the lighting and music links. Stuff the fact it was my birthday or we had rehearsals 8 hours later I needed it sorted there and then.  The same when I competed musically, by my mid teens my family used to hire the services of my oldest friend to deal with me before I went on stage as it was like dealing 8an explosive.

It wasn't and isn't because I wanted more or to even win. It's this drive to better the moment, and where necessary implement equality and fairness. If a competitor was unfairly marked or judged, or rules broken I would the first to shout literally. By the same rules if I wasn't up to fair competition I would withdraw rather than half arse it. 

Only once can I remember competing unwillingly, I was 26 post ear surgery so I had lost 40% of my hearing and withdrawing because of that.  To top of that I had the cold from hell and that screwed hearing anything worth while. It was the week of my mentor, my grandads birthday, who was on the downward spiral of dementia at the time. Anyway we took him to the competition to hear the others and return my trophy from the previous years win. Totally disregarding my own views I find I have been entered and they won't let me back out. So I spent the next half hour doing nothing but scales etc to see if I could even hear in tune. The answer was no but it gave the instrument and I one hell of a warm up, then I glanced over a piece of music I was studying on the violin, not the banjolin I was competing on. Basically  they are tuned the same but played differently. Then before I knew it i was on the stage competing. I never heard the previous entrees  as I could not have heard them anyway I was literally winging it my hearing was so bad. Anyway I am playing this piece to Schubert praying to God I wasn't embarrassing my grandad coz I have no idea how it sounds just it feels OK. It's when I finish I am hyper aware of the silence. Even being practically deaf you can feel the stillness I remember glancing over at my grandad who for the first time I can remember has tears in his eyes. It feels an age but the reality is its seconds and I'm receiving a standing ovation.  But all that matters was the smile of my grandad. Somehow I had blown the completion out the water and won outright with the highest score to date. My grandad was dead within 8 weeks but for those 8 weeks and especially that day, he had seen the fulfilment of all the years of his and my work.

The point of that painful story is it was, as everyone has told me ever since, that the drive in me to always bring even better to the table meant I was more than ready to do the job when knocked back. By never being just happy with, means it's so ingrained in me I could perform in my sleep. I refuse to just settle and that's why I refer to the above song. The drive for a love supreme means to look for that thing called Utopia or Nirvana. The ultimate moment of perfection. Because by consistently seeking it, we can give others it on our journey. I never knew that the competition would be the last time my grandad would hear me perform, at that time he was walking etc. But in that performance it gave him so much joy, yet I never heard a note I played, and you know what it doesn't matter, the fact it brought him happiness was reward enough for me. That's when you realise your own inner wealth when you see the happiness in others.