The will to carry on

The last few years have been rather unprecedented for me because of the number of personal losses that I have experienced.

I have lost schoolmates and friends, my father, my longest standing friend as well as a few musician comrades along the way.

Some have died from natural causes and a couple of friends were murdered. Some were sudden deaths,  others like in the case of my father, it was watching him slip away three weeks after his first and only surgery.

Just recently in May of this year my favourite Grunge singer - Chris Cornell committed suicide, he was only 52 but then on what would have been his 53rd birthday, July 20th, another singer - Chester Bennington committed suicide by hanging as well.

I can't help but feel that maybe I was naive for so long, thinking that all my friends, family and comrades and people that I admired would always be around me all my life. Or if not around me, perhaps in my life one way or another.

If anything, what I have learned over these last three years is that life is absolutely impermanent, always changing and nothing can ever be taken for granted, because as the saying goes 'here today, gone tomorrow'.

I do find that I have a hard time with death, I go through initial periods of shock and grief and then I try to carry on, but then there are days where I sit and think about all who have gone to the other side and I think that life is just not the same and that I don't know how to continue, I don't know how to be happy sometimes.

Perhaps it never will be the same, and that's the sad part.

The hard part is getting up everyday and putting my best foot forward, not because I want to, but because those who have gone would want me to 'keep on keeping on', as Al Green would say.

And that is the hardest part of life, keeping on when you have less and less loved ones to travel that road of life with you.

But, I'm starting a new chapter in my life soon and I have to think that this is the most important part of my life, and yes life will never be the same, but I have so much more to give and to live for, I have so much to look forward to, that I just can't give up now, I can't stop trying now.

I remember the line from a very sad movie about a child kidnapping once, the choir sang 'If the song is to be sung, then we must keep on singing'.

So, in loving memory of Damien So'Brien, Rawle Francis, Paul Emmanuel, Andrew Moffat, Justin Lee and George Elias; I gotta keep doing what I do.

May you all rest in peace.

Thank you for being a part of my life.

God be with you.

Disappointment and the Headless Chickens

I remember reading in the bible that if you put your trust in man, you will always be disappointed. Put your trust in God, and he will never fail you. Everyone will disappoint you - family, friends, loved ones. Even the ones you don't expect.

A friend of mine keeps on saying that he is in the fight of his life and nobody seems to care. It's hard to hear when he says that because people do genuinely care, it's just that sometimes they don't know how to help.

Somedays I myself feel as if I am in the fight of my life. Fight to make ends meet, fight to stay positive and keep on sending out those resumes for that 'perfect job', fight to keep on practicing guitar although most days I keep on hearing those voices in my head saying that I will never get better at certain flaws in my playing - an old high-school friend of mine, another great guitarist told me that we have technically missed the boat, that we should have been wood-shedding in our teens, not in our forties, that it is too late to master the guitar.

Maybe it's the stubborn side of me, but I'm still trying to perfect the guitar.

Trying to fail or failing to try?

But it is hard to keep trying when there's no sign of improvement, when there's no blue skies on the horizon. It's hard when you almost seem to run out of options. When you keep on trying different things but the end result is always the same - failure, no vacancy, no work, nothing.

I wonder if most people feel like headless chickens? Just going through the day. wishing they could get a better pay or even a decent job but they don't know where to start? Knowing that they have potential but they don't know how to realize it. I wonder if most people are bitter because they too, tried so hard but fell flat on their face many a time. I often wonder if the average person is just going through the motions of life, wishing for something better, but with no real clue of how to get to that better place.

I know the old saying, 'You only fail when you stop trying'.

But I tell you my dear reader, it is truly hard to keeping trying after multiple failures, and I do think it's only natural to want to just give up and just be satisfied with just 'existing'.

Maybe that's whom most people are anyway - just disappointed headless chickens that have lost the fight and are fed up getting back in the ring.

'The act of a noble warrior, who lost the will to fight' - 'The Pass' by RUSH.

Nothing without a fight

Some things in life arrive smoothly and without much fuss. Other things come when you least expect it and bring either trouble or fortune.

Then there's those situations in life that you have to work towards, those experiences that stretch you and pull you apart, that make you feel as if you're going crazy.  You may work towards your goal and then it falls flat, you don't get what you thought you deserve. Even worse, someone else gets 'it' sooner and without much work and gratitude.

And the hardest thing for you to do is accept that your path is a different one, and perhaps your reward is just around the corner.

The real lesson is in the journey, not the destination.

But, it's always good to have a destination in mind.

Life is a funny thing, it usually balances out when you least expect it.

But it's always worth the fight.