Recently, a friend asked me, “Scott, what do you want?”
I said, “What do you mean?”
They said, “You’ve done a lot of work. You’ve written nearly twenty albums, scored
films, composed a few symphonies, played in bands, written a book, recorded
audiobooks, scored a video game… what do
you want out of life?”
I didn’t answer right away.
Not that I didn’t know, but I didn’t know how to phrase it. I’ve spent time over the last few days
considering that very thing. What do I
want? What I’ve always wanted.
Of course, I want to live a happy and healthy life – that’s
a given. I want my creativity and career
to continue to flourish. Sure. But there has to be more to life than just
that, right?
I think about the many people who have inspired or taught me
something, even if I had never met them.
I look at the way the conducted themselves, at least as far as I could
see. I look at how they influenced or
benefited the world, each in their own way.
That is what I want. To make a
difference. Through my words and music,
through my actions and efforts and, hopefully, my inspirations.
I have had the great pleasure of meeting some of the biggest
influences in my life. I’ve shaken their
hands and been able to thank them for all I have learned from them, for their
work that I have enjoyed or for what they have shown me as human beings. Those moments have been some of the greatest
of my life. Maybe, someday, someone will
want to meet me because I’ll have done something that makes them feel about me
the way I have felt about my influences.
I like to think that I have learned a lot over the years and
that, these days, I have a fairly relaxed approach to life. It takes a lot to rattle me but it isn’t
beyond reason for it to happen. I don’t
tolerate people being bullied, for example.
There just isn’t a reason anyone has to treat anyone else that way. I do my best to treat everyone well, until
they give me reason enough not to. Most
of the time, it is best to simply sweep them out of my life so I can keep the
path clear and continue to move forward.
Having just uploaded my first pieced together music video, I
started thinking about the mass amount of media out there and how easy it is to
get lost in it. YouTube and Vimeo
haven’t even been around that long, yet are flooded with plenty to view. Where will things be in 100 years from
now? Where will my little video I spent
a couple hours putting together be? What
about the films I have worked on? The
albums I’ve released? Sure, I could say
people still play Beethoven’s music and Charlie Chaplin’s movies but the market
is just starting to get flooded now by people trying to break through the
barrier of stardom. Every year that goes
by will get easier and easier to fill the world up with art, good or bad, and
more and more will be doing just that.
Still, maybe something I have done or will do will shine through all
that.
In the end, when all is said and done for me, I hope that I
will have made a difference in someone’s life.
If it is through something I have done to help someone I believe in or
something I have said or written or composed for a film, album, video
game... whatever the case may be. I want to treat people with sincerity and
encouragement and respect along the way and I want to reach as many people as I
can. And I want it to go on forever.
That’s what I want.
Thanks for reading!
