Okay, I’ll own it up to it right now. I had two other drafts in the works when I sat myself down on Sunday night to start writing this post. My husband and I just finished watching 25 Years of Rock and Roll on TV. We sat there watching with our laptop looking up the ages of the performers. How old is he? What about her? OMG! He’s 64! Yeah, it aged us and made us feel o-l-d. On the other hand, it was also inspiring to see people who are still performing 35 to 40 years after they started (yo, Bruce Springsteen anyone?) and see such passion and excitement for what they are doing. C’est incroyable!

There were performances, like Simon and Garfunkel, that were just gorgeous and seamless. They sang as beautifully together as they ever have. There were others where enthusiasm and passion carried the day. What was the difference I wondered? Not passion alone. Like with most things I imagine it’s part the blessing of good genes, the commitment to your craft to keep pursuing your passion when there might be little demand for it, and good old fashioned hard work. Nonetheless, it made me think about a number of things.

Professional musicians are much like professional athletes. There seems to be a shelf life to their careers. The physical demands of performance on the body and voice are huge. My 19-year old plays guitar and always says he would never want to be the lead vocalist because it’s so exhausting to play AND sing for an hour or more. Yeah, think of all the bands you’ve listened to that played four or more sets in a single evening. To perform well, musicians have to stay in shape, especially their voices.

What, you may be wondering, does this have to do with anything?

Watching all these performers made me ask myself what in my life I pursue with anything close to the same passion. The one thing that came to mind was reading. My passion for reading has only grown over the years. I can’t imagine a day, let alone my life, without reading. It has broadened me, changed me, entertained me, and sustained me through some darn tough times. I think I’m better at it than when I started. I’m still learning from reading and books. What would I do, I wondered if I were physically limited by age and the mere passage of time from reading? Are people who create, artists, musicians, actors, writers self aware enough to know when they aren’t relevant any more? Could I be that self aware?

Writers sort of peak too, I guess. Although, no one can hit a home run every time they write a book or play a song. We all have off days. I relate this to how I review books. I give a lot of ‘B’ grades. A ‘B’ equates to a non-life changing read, but also a read where I got exactly what I expected from the book. Which means that if I actually graded some of the ‘B’ books against one another some of the grades would raise and many of the grades would lower. It’s all about expectations. So… Do we have greater expectations from a physical performance or creation such as music, painting or sculpture than we do from say a more cerebral creation like writing books or music?

It strikes me from the other side of 50 that maybe as one gets older there may be more experience to draw on, experience that would lend itself to the creative process. One may have fewer works, but actually better work. Right now I can’t think of any performer of music, besides the aforementioned Bruce Springsteen that comes to mind. Someone who is writing and performing music that is both commercially and artistically successful. Can you think of anyone?

It’s different with writing. Nora Roberts, Stephen King, James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell are all over 50 and still having gang buster careers. I thought of them right away. They are all still, presumably, passionate about what they do.

Maybe I’m just feeling a little philosophical tonight after seeing so many musicians from my youth perform. I remind myself that we just celebrated Thanksgiving and I’m grateful I’m still pursuing my passion for reading with as much or more enthusiasm as I did at 20.

There is no truer truth obtainable by Man than comes of music.
~Robert Browning

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