THE FEARLESS AMATEUR
Last Saturday at the Canadian Music Festival I spoke to a room full of young music hopefuls. Songwriters mostly, burning with passion for the music they’re ready to create. Their dream is, of course, to become successful professionals.
I should have reminded them that we’re all amateurs. At least we start out that way. At everything. I mean everything. Including marriage, parenting, and all the minor subjects like whatever your chosen occupation is. That little place we visit in exchange for the ability to feed ourselves and our families.
There’s really no schooling for some of the most important jobs. Watching mom and dad was probably our primary source of information in the art of keeping a family shiny side up. Or not. It’s where our skill set is acquired. Or not. There are millions of people running around on this planet acting exactly like the people they were never, ever going to be like!
While I celebrate my own job description with a few hyphens … ‘Songwriter-singer-actor-recovery and music creator advocate’, I’m still one heart, one mind. I’m an activist in all these areas because they’ve always been interesting and important to me. The same love of movies and music that set me on my path as a kid from Omaha motivates me today as President of ASCAP, representing over 450,000 songwriter, composer and publisher members and as co-writer with Tracey of our first book. ‘Gratitude & Trust, Recovery Is Not Just For Addicts’.
I could never have planned the journey that led me to this moment. Never in a hundred years. I wanted to be an actor. Well into my 20’s I was short and looked like a kid. Until you put me next to a real kid. Then I looked like a kid with a hangover. The acting thing was a passion but I didn’t fit. After a couple of small roles in films the door slammed shut. I was broke. Sleeping on my mothers couch at twenty-six. For some totally unknown reason I picked up a cheap guitar, learned a few chords and started writing songs. I felt like I’d come home. I have a few ‘past life’ theories about why I loved it so. Right away it felt like what I was born to do.
I couldn’t have imagined the impossible odds I was facing. No training, no connections, a squeaky little voice that didn’t exactly make me an ‘idol’ contender, my pure love for what I’d discovered I could do blinded me.
So I proceeded without fear. Blissfully unaware I stumbled along writing long, heartfelt, codependent anthems. Songs of longing and desire as far away from the chart busting hits of the day as you could get. I was a rank amateur sharing, without shame, the intense emotions bubbling in the center of my chest.
An amateur songwriter – I repeat – proceeding without fear. Lovely things began to happen. I met a man who knew a man. A few twists in the road and I was suddenly sitting in my own office at A & M records. Surrounded by industry professionals of the highest order I began to achieve some success.
They’d been amateurs once. Like me. I have a theory that ‘God’ shows up in shoe leather. We meet people that ‘give freely’ of their gifts and move us along on our path to our ‘right place’ in this world.
Years later, amidst the accolades and attention my songwriting had garnered, something changed. I have a theory that I paused long enough to look at where I was headed, felt that first unconscious twinge of panic and grabbed a drink to calm the hidden fear of being unworthy. A long slide began with that action that was finally addressed twenty-three years ago when I got sober. But, my earliest success came, I believe, because I’d been so consumed by the joy of the work that I’d proceeded unafraid.
Fear. The big dream eraser. My point today would be that your amateur status is a giant plus if it’s accompanied by a love of what you’re doing. May it drive you towards that point on the horizon you’ve chosen as a goal and as you begin to sense impending success be unafraid. That hunger in your chest is a gift, not a burden. You deserve the life you dreamed of. Live it joyfully in Gratitude and Trust.
Paul Williams is a singer, songwriter, actor, recovery advocate and has been a fixture on the American cultural scene since the seventies. His book Gratitude and Trust is now available.