I’ve recently finished reading ‘Roadwork’, a book by Stephen King (written under the pen name of ‘Richard Bachman’), and found that I relate to some of the thoughts articulated by the protagonist in one section of the book.
I’m sharing the excerpts I relate to here, in case others might also relate to them, and find reading them to be as insightful, or as comforting an exercise as I did, and also because some of the excerpts convey a little of how I’ve been feeling lately, with regards to feeling stuck in life, and feeling, at times, almost helpless with many areas of life in which I need to make progress, that being something I’d like to write about.
Each of the following excerpts are spoken by the protagonist – Barton George Dawes – to another character – Olivia Brenner – consecutively, as part of a single conversation between the two characters.
Barton is trying to convince Olivia, a girl in her early twenties, to stick at her efforts of being in a different place and trying different things, even if she’s not having a good time at the moment, as he reflects on his own experiences of life:
It’s soul cancer… One way or the other, things are set and they’ll turn out the way they will. Only one thing that bothers me, and that’s a feeling I get from time to time that I’m a character in some bad writer’s book and he’s already decided how things are going to turn out and why. It’s easier to see things that way, even, than to blame it on God – what did He ever do for me, one way or the other? No, it’s this bad writer, it’s his fault… It’s a stupid story.
– Stephen King (under pen name ‘Richard Bachman’), ‘Roadwork’
I relate to Barton saying he feels like “a character in some bad writer’s book”, a book in which the writer has already decided “how things are going to turn out and why”, in that, I feel like I can’t do anything much right these days, that whatever efforts I make, things go wrong. Sometimes the more I try, it will seem to me as though more goes wrong in response to that. Hence my hesitation to even start trying on some tasks sometimes.
It can feel as though there is something set against me, that doesn’t want me to get further in life. Like something wants me to accept that it’s over.
At the same time, I don’t believe that ‘The Universe’ or a God is actively sabotaging my plans, consciously willing on my defeat. I think it’s more just statistics. For example, when a mathematical survival simulation of simulated lifeforms is run, some ‘organisms’ just aren’t as well adapted to their environment as others, or they will have some weaknesses compared with other ‘organisms’ in the simulation, and so these members inevitably fail, in that they are run out of the program before they achieve their programmed goals, because even if they have one small inadequacy, over time, the effects of that inadequacy on the being’s life accumulate, and become more and more pronounced.
So often these days, I feel like I’m falling further and further behind in life, and that it’s getting harder and harder to keep any kind of pace with the rate at which entropy would normally create disorder in one’s life.
The next time you look around you’ll be forty and your options will mostly be gone.
– Stephen King (under pen name ‘Richard Bachman’), ‘Roadwork’
I mention the above line about turning forty because I’m set to turn forty in not too long, and it isn’t great to hear the perspective, that most of my options are “gone” because of this.
Since my accident, almost nine years ago now, I’ve not dwelt much on my age, as I feel that I haven’t ‘lived’ since my accident, and so I’m not as old as my years make me out to be. I’m in no doubt that I’m as physically old as my years make me, but because I feel I’ve not ‘lived’ these years, experientially, I think of myself as being only a year or two older, if not the same age, as the age I’d been when I had my accident. Because it’s been the case that for so long, age has not been something I’ve dwelt much upon, I’ve similarly not dwelt upon the implications of age, perhaps also because it would be too upsetting to confront the possibility of options becoming more limited.
I think what gives me hope is the belief that I truly have a musical gift, and a musical gift that is potent enough to be capable of providing me with all the opportunities I might need in order to live a more fulfilling life, regardless of my age.
I’ve never been a music maker who’s depended on, nor intended to depend upon, being a performing artist who uses a youthful or attractive image to sell their work. I’ve always thought of myself as more than that, as someone whose work is good enough to sell itself, so this gives me some hope, in spite of my age being what it is, and my wanting to make a living in an industry that tends to be more excited about its younger participants.
I think the age thing is more of a concern when I think about what it would be like to study, as a mature student, should I ever get to study at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, an aspiration which I’ve previously written about on this site, that I’ve acquired since I – on a whim – attended the school’s open day last year. I would be in my forties by the time I could meet entrance requirements to the course, in terms of having sufficient musical literacy, the kind that being a self-taught music maker means I did not receive the training for earlier in life, and something I would now need to develop through my own efforts. I wonder if being in my forties would make the experience of studying emotionally difficult.
Though I would like to think that I would be so grateful for the chance to learn, and so proud of myself for managing to get into that course, and that I would find learning so fulfilling, that I would overall not be so downhearted about being a mature student.
All places are the same unless your mind changes. There’s no magic place to get your mind right. If you feel like shit, everything you see looks like shit.
– Stephen King (under pen name ‘Richard Bachman’), ‘Roadwork’
I relate to things seeming “shit” no matter where I am, because, for all the progress I’ve made with depression in recent years, there are still times when I get so down, that I can’t even get myself to watch TV, read a book, or make myself a cup of tea. When every action seems pointless, because my mood feels so heavy that it seems impossible that any action might be capable of lifting it even the tiniest bit, and because it’s almost too scary to confirm that hypothesis by trying to feel better.
Getting old is like driving through snow that just gets deeper and deeper. When you finally get in over your hubcaps, you just spin and spin. That’s life. There are no plows to come and dig you out. Your ship isn’t going to come in, girl. There are no boats for nobody. You’re never going to win a contest. There’s no camera following you and people watching you struggle. This is it. All of it. Everything.
– Stephen King (under pen name ‘Richard Bachman’), ‘Roadwork’
This part about “driving through snow” resonated with me, most strongly of all the above excerpts. It describes, so well, the feeling I have so often these days, of being stuck in life, and why, at times, it can seem futile to try anymore.
I hope I find the strength to keep trying enough to get back to my music making.
For so long I’ve not been working on the music because I had issues with some hard drives failing last year, and since then I’ve devised different plans to back up and manage the hard drives going forwards, but to add to this, making a start on realizing my various iterations of the back up system has been delayed each time that a new system is created, because I’m so intimidated by the thought of setting it all up, of backing up, labelling, and managing these drives, and of documenting what I’ve done, all correctly, before I can go forwards with music making.
The fear of getting started on this task comes from my half-expecting to make things worse with my efforts to make things better these days, so it would be easy to understand why I would be particularly anxious to realize any hard drive back up system I could conceive of, when my music, that means so much to me, is on those hard drives. There is the extra fear that comes from handling what is so important and precious to me, of somehow messing things up, of mishandling the drives and losing files from my music projects.
I will do my best to make progress with the latest drive back up system I’ve designed, whose design I arrived at about a month ago now.
I feel that I’ve been losing both myself and hope, the longer I’ve been away from my music making.
Making music is the only thing that still makes me feel like I have a chance of regaining some control over my life again. Of getting up and out of the snow, and back on the road again. Making music boosts my confidence in myself, in my ability to still do anything right, whether the task be music-related or not, because I’m that proud of the music I make*.
I hope I can finish realizing my hard drive back up system and get back to my music making again soon.
*Having said that, ‘Beautiful Star’ is not a track I’m particularly proud of, as since sharing it I’ve felt more than a little embarrassed about its awful lyrics and concept! I’ve left the track online, as I’m attached to it being an example of me trying at something, even if it’s turned out to be a track that’s not the best advertisement for the musical gift I like to believe I’m in possession of, and of which I’ve written copiously about on this site! I would hate for ‘Beautiful Star’ to be the last track I’ve shared for much longer, so that’s all the more reason for me to do my best to get back to my music making as soon as possible. I really hope I can make that happen.
LYNA GALLIARA 