FIND YOUR HOWL

Flaum references a story from his fifth grade class. His teacher was a huge jerk and a strict grader. He hated her. There was a project she made them do where they had to write a five page short story. Only one kid got 5 pages. His story was about a tiger who kept trying to escape from a zoo but every night he jumped out of the cage only to show up in a new one. The point was that no matter how many times you jump out of a situation, it will follow you.


"Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness. I'm a lonely soldier off to war. Sent away to die, never quite knowing why. Sometimes it makes no sense at all." Man in the Wilderness by Styx.

This quote speaks to me because it makes me know that there are other people feeling the same way I am. In a creative field such as audio production there are many people using their own creative talents everyday. It is difficult for me, as a college student, to know if my creative talents are good enough to use in my future field. The economy is not doing well and finding a job is very difficult, so I need to figure out a plan for after graduation. The quote uses the analogy of a soldier going to war and does not really know why he is doing so. I see this as a direct comparison to the way I am feeling about being in such a creative field where I don’t exactly have my place yet. There are many of my peers who have been practicing and learning about Media Arts related subjects before they were even in college. I came into it almost completely dry and feel I have a huge disadvantage. I know that I am not alone though which helps. I enjoy being at college and I enjoy Media Arts and Studies, but there is also a part of me that really doesn’t know if college was a good choice. Audio Production is a tricky area because while I am spending a huge amount of money at college learning about it, there are tons of people out there doing it. Spending four years and a lot of money only to find out there are no jobs seems very stupid. I hope the four years spent here will give me a huge upper hand on many of the other people in the Audio Production field. I trust that this program will prepare me for not only Audio Production, but other areas as well.  That way when I graduate I will have many options for a career besides sitting in a studio recording and mixing for bands, or sitting in a bar mixing for crappy local bands. This quote helps me realize that even my favorite musician Tommy Shaw, who gets paid quite a large sum of money just to be creative, felt like I do at one point in his life. This is a strange time of my life and I know that I need to work extremely hard now, so that in the future I can have it easy. Maybe not easy as in simple, but easy as in fun. If I can get a job doing something I love than feeling scared now and working hard is totally worth it. That is easier said than done though. I, being the creative musician I am, would rather sit down and play guitar then write a blog post. Thankfully I was creative enough to use a lyrics from one of my favorite songs, so it would be a little easier to sit down and write. I feel like a man in the wilderness of Ohio University. A creative soldier preparing for the battle of life, and I am scared as hell.