I've had immense success in my academic courses. Teachers adore me. A paper I wrote for Philosophy of Art was awarded second place in an annual survey of undergraduate academic writing. I can barely read the paper. I did not edit it. I spent a good amount of time on it, but I should have spent more. Academics are easy. I get them.
I wonder if it's foolish of me to be entering into a non-academic field. I don't want to be in an academic field, but I can't help but think I may regret that decision later. I'm torn. Two of the people responsible for giving me the award mentioned above told me today that they thought I was "too smart for this school." I don't know what that means. Does that mean I should be somewhere else? Or would it be beneficial to the arts to have someone with academic strengths be active in that realm?
It occurs to me that my academic teachers do not see the highly-emotional parts of my personality, the parts that I always assumed are well-suited to the arts. I write well because it helps me organize my thoughts. This does not always come across when I speak. I emote well because I feel a lot. The problem I'm having is with the craft aspect of music/art. I do not excel at that. Sometimes, I'm glad for that. Other times, it's painful. I really don't see myself as a creative person. Being creative and being intelligent can be very, very different traits. Also, being emotional and being creative are not the same. I didn't realize that when I was seventeen.
As Charlie recently wrote me, "I wondered if you were going to end up seeing guitar as a bit of a burden. It seems natural to me, and it's probably healthy."
I don't expect to solve this problem any time soon. It may very well be something that I piece together for decades, but I needed to put it down.
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