View from the Cheap Seats

July 25-31, 2016

Keep on playing

By William O. "Bill" James

I was watching some show the other day and someone made the remark that musicians never retire. They simply quit when they run out of music. I gave this a little bit of thought and immediately began to compare it to my own life and that of others I knew. I am pretty sure that had I been given the right training and had a couple of lucky breaks, I could have been a very popular rock star in my own right. It is not hard for me to see how someone in that business would want to play or sing as long as they could. On the other hand, I think the statement speaks to everyone’s life on some level even those of us that don’t sing or play music.

We all have loved doing things in the past that we don’t care for any longer. We have all experienced the loss of desire to do something or be with someone else after the “music” in the activity or the relationship is gone. We don’t always know where the music has gone to. We don’t always know why it went. Either way, it doesn’t really matter, the music is gone and failure on our part to either find the music or replace it can lead to a pretty sad existence.

I believe that John Cougar Mellencamp was the first person that ever told me that “life would go on long after the thrill of living was gone.” I was about 18 or 19 when the song “Jack and Diane” came out and it makes a lot more sense to me now then it did back then. I understood what it meant the way that a 12 year old boy understands that he will some day be in love. The thing is, he has no real understanding about what that means until it actually happens. Intellectually knowing something is a lot different than actually knowing and experiencing something. I guess that is called life and experience.

The challenge is to continue finding the things that interest you and that make you happy. This is often easier said than done. You have to find your “music.”  Think about your view of life like you’re looking through a windshield on a car over the course of a long trip. At first, the windshield is clean and it is easy to see everything. As the trip (life) proceeds the windshield gets a few bugs on it, nicks from thrown rocks, and any number of other things to obscure your view of what is coming at you. If you are not careful, your view can become obscured or limited to the extent that you may even miss a turn. What is even worse is that you can get accustomed to the lack of view and accept it as the way things are supposed to be. Of course, you can always take the time to clean your windshield, but as we get older it is still hard to see new things through the windshield even after we have tried to clean it. We still have to strain to see the things we could have many years ago.

Life has a way of weighing you down. Not everything life throws at you is heavy, but for most of us the piling on never ends. It is the piling on that is the most dangerous because it is the little things in life that steal our music as much as anything. The silence can become deafening note by note. Life is easier when you are young. Everything is new and exciting. As we get older, we have to look a little harder dig deeper to make sure we are connected to our own personal music.

My simple suggestion is to refrain from retiring and never quit during the game of life. Do what you have to do to find your music. Sing at the top of your lungs and don’t worry about what others think about your song. If they were singing their own song they wouldn’t even hear yours. The advice is free and comes from way up high in the CHEAP SEATS!

Bill James is a criminal defense lawyer and co founder of the James Law Firm with offices in Little Rock, Conway, and Fayetteville, Arkansas. He may be reached at Bill@JamesFirm.com.