The Machine to Put My Cog In

What’s a thing that you have made, or finished, or accomplished that you’re proud of yourself for? Just a concrete thing you’re proud of yourself for.

I don’t know if this is an exact point in time, but I’m actually kind of impressed with myself that I got so good at an instrument in high school. I was pretty good at the trumpet. It was never something that I wanted to necessarily pursue.. But I do think it’s somewhat of an accomplishment that I was pretty good at it. It’s crazy too. I used to be able to read sheet music and everything too, fully. Get me a piece of sheet music, give me an hour and I can just play it.

Wow. That’s actually really cool.

Yeah, I know. There’s not a lot of things where I put a lot of time into honing my skill into one specific thing. Most of my life, I kind of jumped around between different things I liked, but that’s the one thing that I consistently had a class for, like, seven years where I played pretty much every day.

And it was just that instrument too.

So I guess I never considered that I put in so many hours into…

You throw yourself a lot of ways, but that was a funnel.

I guess it was consistent. I didn’t have a lot of consistent interests because a lot of, you know, circumstances change throughout your life. And it was one of those things that not everybody saw, you know, as a popular thing to be in band. But I still do like music.

My thing about that is even though it was rough, you stuck with it for seven years.

Because it was more about hanging out with a group of people that had a common interest. There’s a lot of people from different grades you get to talk to. And as a freshman, especially. I think my freshman year was what really made me actually like the class. All the friends that I hung out with were there, and then there’s these cool older kids that you get to hang out with.

And then you became that.

Well, yeah, because also when you’re going into high school initially, you’re like, “oh man, there’s so many older kids. I’m scared of them.” But with band, before school even started, you’re at band camp with these older kids and you are colleagues, basically. So I feel like for me, I was never scared of the older grades at all.. Whereas some people maybe didn’t experience that.

Yeah, that is interesting. It’s like an in.

Yeah, exactly. It really got me over my fears of being around these, you know, damn near adults, there’s 18 year olds. And so I think it also helped, you know, I think in middle school I was especially a bit of a closed off kid. And so as corny as it is, it did help me open up a bit. I don’t know if I was ever in love with marching band, but I liked music. And maybe that’s why I’ve been trying to do a lot of other music stuff. I think I’ve always been better at performing than creating. I’m like a Lego piece. Well, that’s what you kind of are in band. Maybe not Lego pieces, but little fuses and there’s the big thing where each piece makes the music come together.

Oh, like a cog.

Yeah, I guess, yeah. Cog is actually a much better way of putting it. You don’t want to play too loud because you don’t want to outshine. You don’t want to play too quiet because you won’t be heard.

Mm hmm.

That’s life.

That is life.

That’s life. And you’ll have your moments to have your solo, but you’re a cog in the orchestra of life. Damn! That’s..

Put that in the book?

That’s the damn title, bruh! Not the title, but the..

Yeah. I do have to come up with titles for these sections.

That’s a pretty good one if you ask me. There are conductors, you know, people that are, like, in charge. I never felt like I really wanted to do that that much. I never desired it. It would be cool to have that kind of status, but it seems like you have a lot more…

The stress outweighs.

You have a lot more responsibility. And sometimes I prefer to just, you know...

The world doesn’t work unless there’s people who like all the different jobs.

I have a coworker that loves talking to people. It’s his favorite part of the job. And that’s great. That’s awesome for you. But I am not one of those people, so maybe don’t involve me with that all the time.. But yeah, still, he’s important for, you know-

He’s a cog.

He’s a cog, exactly. And he likes that. He’s happy with that. I just need to find the machine that I need to put my cog into. Maybe that’s the title.

Honestly.

The machine to put my cog in.

I kind of love that. Yeah. Because the Everyman is so… It’s as important as the big star. Yeah. And I feel like people look down on the people that aren’t big and in the spotlight. But how is the world gonna fucking run if you don’t have that. I always hated that idea of, “you got to think big”. I have finally started being like, ‘I just need to get enough money to live and it doesn’t matter what I do, as long as I’m okay with it.”

It doesn’t really need to be impressive. It just has to fund the lifestyle that you want to live.

And not be unbearable to go to every day.

Because if you just hate your job every single day and that’s the only thing you do, then what’s the point of your life? You’re working all the time and you don’t have any time to enjoy the life that you want to work for. I get the whole, “just save up in your young years and then retire early.” But I feel like I want to enjoy all the years. Why do I have to struggle now? Why do I have to have a sucky time to have a good time later? Why can’t I just have a solid time all the time?

Yeah, no, I agree with that. It is important to prepare for the future, but if you’re only doing that, then you’re not living.

No. Yeah. I agree with that fully.