Recently on a boring night I was lazily surfing the internet when my friend Marco suggested I check out the relatively new album of I AM X. While looking at it on youtube I came accross the name Imogen Heap, which he apparently collaborated on the song " My secret friend" which incidentally is one of my favourite songs in the album. So I googled her up and I found forty of her video blogs. I was hooked as soon as I realized what they were about : the construction of her hideaway studio. She had a very lively and likeable personality and of course she was not American. She was talented in many ways, possessed a beautiful voice on which she had excellent control and she could write music on her computer by herself. Although her style was a bit too poppy for me I appreciated her craftmanship and really enjoyed watching her, I must admit, with some envy.
In fact one of my biggest dreams is to have exactly what she has: her own home in a quiet place near the city and in this home she has an amazing fully professional studio where she records her album. Of course a life like hers has her own stress; she has to work to strict deadlines and once the album is finished she has to travel a lot which often means a very tiring schedule with sleepless nights and loss of her voice due to straining.
Also, I imagine she must spend a lot of time on her own far away from home which as much as it is exciting can also be very lonely. So my envy of course stops there. I do value my love life a lot, perhaps too much to sacrifice it to my dream. On the other hand the perfect life is a balance of the various interests and passions and duties we have. Such balance is often very hard to find but that does not mean we should not try.
My two biggest dreams are to have a job like hers but also to share my life with my partner and one day to have a family. Sure enough this is a very common dream. I also want my work to be meaningful, meaning that somehow I want it to benefit other people too. In fact if it was all just for me I would find it rather empty and ultimately unsatisfying.
I am at a crossroad in my life. Until recently I believed I needed to make a sharp and well defined decision about choosing a music career and a family. But then a friend of mine said: take it step by step, life is completely unpredictable, so give up any notion of trying to know and control the future. I guess this advice is cliche for a reason. There is some truth in it. To use another clichè , if you put all your eggs in one basket, you lose them you lose all.
Of course we can and need to direct our energy where we'd like to go but that's pretty much it. After that it is impossible to know where your efforts will lead in conjunction with other people's influence. One has to just adapt and then deal with what comes.
I am now living alone in my parents house in Tuscany while they are in New Zealand. I know now why they have moved back there for the winter: it is miserably cold and lonely here... my partner is in Spain and we cannot communicate much. This has been very hard for me but I am slowly regaining my happiness by learning to adapt. I guess I am learning to find comfort in my own company and in doing things I enjoy doing by myself. This on the other hand is only made possible by the thought that I am loved by him and by some other key people which I will see again soon. If it weren't for this I must say I could not enjoy my solitude very much at all.
So I guess the moral of the story is that like Mc Candless says in his diary, although our spiritual center is inside us and we can only access our inner truths when we spend precious time alone, and we can accomplish important work only when alone we also do need love and other people so our life can be balanced and we can be truly happy...
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