Friday, October 8, 2021

Friday, October 8th, 2021

It's Friday, Tiffany is still asleep, and I've already had a decent amount of coffee. 

I've been going to therapy twice a week now for about a month, and I can definitely say that it is helping me a lot. Writing in this more is going to be part of my personal journey of overcoming my mental health issues. I also hope that it might help kick my brain back into creativity mode.

ENERGY hasn't released new music since 2017. This bothers me every single day of my life. The plain truth of it is that I'm just not inspired. I have plenty of great stuff written, I'm just not inspired to record any of it most of the time. I feel like my love for creating new recordings has been fading. However, I don't think that this is the end...

I know that during my most prolific periods of creativity, I was also exercising regularly, and in a much better place mentally. When we recorded Invasions in 2008, I was doing yoga outside of the studio all the time with one of the producers Mike. We meticulously studied The Beach Boys and their harmonies and knew that we could apply it to ENERGY's sound just like Bad Religion had in the past. 

We achieved that, and I have to believe that it was mostly our mindsets during that period of time. I do remember though that during the recording of Invasions, I was told that one melody I had written for a song wasn't really going to work, and that I was going to have to come up with something else. I became overcome with panic and passed out. Recording ceased for a while that day because of me. It happened again while recording "The Shadowlands" years later...and that was even less of a big deal as far as the "change" that had to be made goes.

I want to start creating for fun again, but a lot of this isn't fun to me. My therapist told me to try to pick up my guitar and just play music for fun every day. Throughout the past few years, there have been so many consecutive months where I didn't even think about playing it. My guitar can sometimes represent my failings to me, so picking it up is only a reminder that I haven't done anything with it in years.

I'm also having trouble getting back to people, and wanting to speak with people in general. People I know in real life that is. I've been invited to multiple gatherings this month, and I haven't replied to them. I'm just not going. I don't know how to tell people, but I just don't want to hang out with anyone in a group setting...pretty much ever again. How do you tell someone "no thanks, I'd rather be home staring at my floor listening to music" without hurting their feelings? 

I don't even know what my plan for today is. I know that's part of my problem. I have no direction or plans. I'm just in constant back pain, and I'm constantly exhausted. A usual day for me involves napping for a few hours just because I can't take the pain anymore. Exercise will help this, but I feel so weighed down all the time that going to the gym seems impossible. I just need to get out of this rut.


I suppose I'm done for now.

I just hope that there isn't a huge gap between this post and my next one.

*There will not be a huge gap between this post and my next one.