How to be grateful for your whole life
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” —Andy Warhol
In 1985 I dreamt of spending the rest of my life as a musician, but a near-fatal automobile accident set me instead onto the path of studying existentialism. The primary question in this field is “What is the meaning of life?” but if you scratch beneath the surface there is an array of questions that arise including, “Where do songs come from?”
As a psychotherapist I have worked with many musicians, artists, writers, actors, directors, and producers who have been forced by the vicissitudes of the entertainment industry to ask existential questions. The lives of freelancers are usually emotional roller coasters as compared to people who have steady paychecks. The popular adage is, “You’re only as popular as your latest hit.”
In general, I love working with musicians; in particular, I have a fascination with one-hit wonders, songwriters who at some point inexplicably produced a morsel of unequivocal genius, a sonic masterpiece, like a portal into an unknown universe… three to five timeless minutes that hover with esoteric intelligence as if heaven itself reached down and caressed a human voice… a song that brushes close enough to the divine to leave us believing in a force greater than our flesh and bones.
But then the songwriter can’t repeat it. Try as they may — and trust me, they do — they never taste the nectar of the celestial again.
What is it like to reach that height once and then be forced into the purgatory of chasing the dragon for the rest of your life? Sounds like an episode of Black Mirror, a modern version of a Faustian pact.
Just for reference my favorite one-hit wonders are “Take On Me” by a-ha, “867–5309/Jenny” by Tommy Tutone, “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass, “Anything, Anything,” by Dramarama, “I Melt with “Smoke from a Distant Fire” by Sanford-Townsend Band, “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell, Fantasy” by Aldo Nova, and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. I can sing every word of all of these songs, but can’t name another song by any of these musicians. Can you?
Now, 40 or 50 years later, some of them are still singing their hit song to half-empty lounges, usually at the end of their sets so audiences don’t go home early. Would you trade your life for a flash of renown, a sparkle of recognition followed by the world’s most painstaking, unanticipated fade-out?
The challenges and struggles of fame cannot be underestimated. George Bernard Shaw wrote, “There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.” Being sufficiently brave to embrace the life of an artist or musician is already challenging; being blessed or cursed with a hit song in your rear-view mirror doubles the stakes. Some one-hit wonders are grateful for the freedoms that their singular song’s riches provided them (especially when rights to that song are sold to films and TV soundtracks). Others are resentful that audiences don’t find their deep cuts to be of equal merit.
But think about it… don’t all of our lives have ups and downs? Aren’t many of us one-hit wonders in some way? Don’t many of us have a “claim to fame,” maybe a viral tweet or TikTok video? And yet none of us want to believe that our best days are behind us.
Watch the documentary The Story of Anvil if you want a a lesson on how a true artist navigates the ups and downs of life: after influencing countless bands and playing the Monsters of Rock festival, the heavy metal band Anvil shuffled into obscurity. Years later while working a minimum wage job, lead singer Steve Kudlow was asked if he would do it all over again. His answer is priceless. It embodies what the father of existentialism in Western culture philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “On this perfect day when everything is ripening and not only the grapes are becoming brown, a ray of sunshine has fallen on my life: I looked behind me, I looked before me, never have I seen so many and such good things together. Not in vain have I buried my forty-fourth year today; I had the right to bury it….How could I not be grateful to the whole of my life?”
Our lives will be full of ups and downs. Some downs – such as car accidents, the passing of loved ones, falling from renown, as well as divorces and getting firing – often lead people to ask “What does it all mean?” Learning gratitude helps us navigate through the emotional vicissitudes that are common to the human experience.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/authenticity-101/202602/what-is-existential-psychology
