45 yr old explains the value of falling behind… | BERLIN MUSIC VLOG
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ต.ค. 2024
- Hi guys,
First of all - hell and massive thank you to all you new subscribers recently - a joy to share this madcap journey with you!
Please know - as this early stage in the channel (or at least since taking it seriously this year!) I want to make friendships and connections first. So please drop a line, tell me what you're up to. Excited to be in touch!
Regarding this:
I have been filming a video on Samuel Becket’s wonderful aphorism:
“Ever tried. Ever Failed. Not matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
This started as a vlog where I was just organising my thoughts without the intention of shooting a one take.
But a lot of ideas I’d been turning over in the back of my mind popped out.
I thought that since there will only be space for a small clip of this (if any) in the main video, then I would instead release the one take.
So here you are!I know there are some counter cultural ideas here, especially in an age dominated by the will for success at all costs and the pre-dominance of grind culture.
But in my life, I’ve had to turn away at times from paths which had far bigger guarantees of success, in order to keep a) my creative life going b) spiritually alive and c) music close to me
It’s meant turning down corporate film jobs, and resisting starting my own agency for my film work (i remain resolutely free-lance!) which would have given so much, but cost everything.
I’m so happy I didn’t take that decision because all that is best in my life - most of all my mental health, sense of unity and happiness - are a result of saying no to the “obvious” things I should have said yes to.
All the best things have happened because I've gone the longer way round.
And yes, there has been a lot of miniature failures. And I’m grateful to those too - each one.
You keep in there guys - keep believing and have the courage to start something new.
I'm writing much more about this in my newsletter this week on Substack (Jim Kroft)
Let me know your thoughts!
Big up,
Jim
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#FreelanceLife
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#Vlog
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Samuel Beckett's "Ever tried. Ever Failed. Fail Better."
Failing Forward in the Creative Process
Prioritizing Mental Health and Creativity
Alternative Paths to Success
The Importance of Saying No in Your Creative Journey
Finding Happiness Beyond the Grind
Balancing Creative Freedom with Financial Stability
The Value of Failure for Artists
The Power of the Vlog Format
Building a Supportive Artist Community
Substack Newsletter for Creatives
The Importance of Long-Term Goals
Overcoming Self-Doubt and Fear of Failure
Prioritizing Passion Over External Validation
The Benefits of a Freelance Creative Life
Artist Struggles and Finding Inspiration
The Power of Gratitude in Artistic Growth
Embracing New Beginnings at Any Stage
Balancing Artistic Dreams and Personal Needs
Finding Your Creative Voice with Jim Kroft
Maturity is when you know everything you have been told is wrong, a lie, or at best an uncomfortable obligation.
Brilliant video, thanks for being so brave to put that message out there.
Dear Roly, thank you so much for both taking the time to watch it, and for your kind words in response.
I had been ruminating on Samuel Becket's aphorism for some days:
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
I think it's easy for us all to live in a state of not quite being where we should be, especially with the ubiquity of social media and its capacity to make people feel somewhat diminished.
I think for normal people there's a sense of being continually yapped out by "more successful" people in the media or selling courses, or giving forever instructions - and often with no shortage of platitudes.
I understand that to be aspirational is part of the human condition. But equally, it is not the only condition. All these gurus seem to forget that the highest order of being is that itself - to be able to "just be".
It's taken me a long time in my life personally - and no short amount of breaking myself down to a core - to find a deeper place defined by neither success or failure.
But rather, seeing success as finding a way to keep spiritually alive.
By that I mean in part, not always needing something else to enjoy being alive. And also, being on guard with the dangerous capacity for us to become cynical as we get older.
And part of what I was trying to get out in the video, is that sometimes tending to these things seriously - means precisely navigating from all the nonsense sold by "grind culture" and success meaning only work work work.
Sometimes your chance to go forward is defined more than anything by the decision to not go forward on everyone else's terms - but to find your own.
That's a hard work, a life long work, but a good work - and, I believe, if lived, breeds a whole other realm of opportunity - because you learn stuff that you can only learn in the dark corners of the spirit - or through having the guts to be silent sometimes.
Or do nothing at all too - sinful as that is cast as being nowadays haha!
Anyway, I have a lot of working out to do with these things.
And I'm using this channel to kind of figure it out and see if I can be helpful along the way - mangled as my knowledge is haha!
I just wanted to write back properly as your comment - and the others - was kind and motivating - it reached me.
Thank you for giving that back and please stay in touch,
Jim
A powerful lesson here 🖤
Great video brother. Fantastic production and apt message.
Yeah. Good video.
Thx a lot for this video, it is coming just at the right time and I can sense in your voice that it comes straight from your soul. Like many, I am living a comfortable life, good job, good situation, good salary and so on, but I am a creative, I need to be inspired, I need to create, to go my pace, to take my own decision, to create, and that office job life (aka rat race) is not letting me do that. So I started lowering my job availability to 90%, providing me 1 extra day off every 2 weeks, that I use to explore my creativity, to try to do something (photography/film making) and grind for it. I often feel lost, so much effort, so few rewards, but I keep pushing and these days I am quite desperate because my mind is screaming to do more of that, and stop loosing time at my job. But I will never give up, I need to make it work and I will make it work somehow, it's just that, I needed to write it.
I'm really happy to hear your words, I feel like someone understand what I feel.
Thank you
Hey pal, I'm really so humbled and moved by your words - thank you for sharing them. I want to offer a few thoughts - that I hope may be useful - while acknowledging before that of course I only know the thinnest amount about your life. But if you find even one thing, I hope that might be of use.
The first, is that from my experience, having such a deep and clear sense of the pain point and frustration - and what you want to do and move towards - is surprisingly rare. So though you are frustrated, and I'm sure tired at times too - you are already in movement because you have the most important thing (before even any action) - self knowledge. Having that, that keen sense of one's own light - even when outside circumstances are blighting it - is extaordinarily powerful. Hold on to it. Let it keep guiding you. Even if the steps feel at this point smaller and more insignificant than you would like to make. They are still clear steps - and feel proud and motivated that you are both listening to yourself and taking action. Massive. You have no idea where that foundation may bring you. You very well may be doing better than you think.
The second is a practical step. In 2013 I lost my record deal with EMI. I had worked for all my adult life to reach it - and lost it the day after my record came out, because Universal bought the label. It was devastating. And it meant that I had to get myself sorted out financially by other means - which led to my freelance career - in filmmaking. Despite the gratitude that I was lucky to develop it, I always felt a dull pain doing my regular corporate jobs because my time with my music was always less than I once had. And the pain point was that - since music was so time consuming - and at times so unwilling to "give" the songs without the longest time commitments - sometimes I felt like I'd never write songs again. I solved this by adopting a new mindset, which is what I want to share with you:
It involved being much more long term-ist than most people are capable of being in the age of Tik-Tok, distraction and the need for immediate rewards. And so, any project that I started, from this point, I gave myself a two year time period. I stopped allowing myself to stress daily with what I couldn't do, and zeroed in always on what I could do. Often that was just a little something - a half hour of practise, a lyrics, an idea or, when blocked, just picking up the dam guitar at all as a discipline. This effort often felt like very little in the day, and I am sure you can relate (perhaps even more than me!). However, we are completely illusory about time and how we use it. I know that it is really hard to get things done, especially with the energy required for working life. But if you keep making the moves you are making, and do it over time, you will see something take shape and something new manifest.
Kafka had the same pain point as you, juggling family, working life and writing in the evening when he wrote these wonderful words:
"Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life it not possible then one must try to wiggle through by subtle manoeuvres."
At the moment you may only have "subtle manoevres" - but do not underestimate where that can lead.
I write this, because I wish so very much that you do not feel disheartened, despite the circumstances. But it feel you are attaching your life to a greater purpose - and I believe that will guide you, and as it does - lessen the screaming you hear.
My third point now: while it is important to think long term, I would also encourage you to focus on one clear project. If it is a film, make it one film at a time and work towards finishing that one thing. While the dream of exploring your creativity fuller is something I believe you will get to - for now, it is important to be pragmatic. When time is squeezed, I would recommend to have a clear focus, that "one thing". Because if you can get it done - that is complete things - not only will that give you a marvellous sense of moving forward - but it will also give you work to show in public. And that leads to:
My fourth and final point: make sure you share your work both as you do it and as you complete it. For me with my film work, sharing it led to more work than I could handle. While music has always been a struggle, my film work has always come in abundance, and frankly, been much easier for me than music. Here's the thing: the world is now needing content. Every individual, brand and artists. Believe me, there is more work out there than film makers to provide it. I believe it is still a really vibrant market. So remember - the bet you are betting on - is not just a broad creative bet - but the development of a new skill which can help you pivot into the life you feel in your chest. It is not as far as you might think - but it might mean that you need to be pragmatic about some of the steps in the meantime.
Finally: bet on yourself. There is good stuff out there. The voice you hear, which seems to be screaming, is a primal power inside you. Let it loose and let it guide you. Just be careful not to do it all at once and burn yourself out. Your energy is everything. Manage it as best you can.
I hope some of this is helpful pal. For the parts that are based on assumptions or don't land, please put aside. But I hope there's something there for you.
You keep in there and you keep going,
Jim
@@jimkroft Hi, Thx a lot for your words, what you wrote resonates with me and confirms what I always remind myself, but sometimes, it is good to hear/read it from someone else. I know that I am on the right path, I know that I will not give up and I know that I will achieve something great one day. There is just no other way. Many years ago, this creativity thing in mind was non stop asking me to be fed. I was in a similar situation with my work/life balance, but I listened to it and took baby steps towards one of my dreams. It took me 5 years of constant efforts and grind, but finally I took a one way ticket to Japan and see what life would bring me there. It was a dream of mine and I achieved it. At that time, I stopped everything I was doing in my country and moved to Japan, alone, and started a whole new life there.
I was learning Japanese language part time there, during that time, and we had to write an essay in Japanese with the topic "what is your dream". At that time, I realised that I just achieved my dream :) I had to call the teacher to explain that I am actually living my dream and I am confused. That was a realisation, it made me think a lot but I thought that from now, I will let the time make me dream about the next one, which is my current one.
Talking about that now because it may help someone to read it, maybe you, maybe another viewer, but all of that taught me one thing: In life, if you don't let you down, nothing will happen to you, so look at your dreams straight in the eyes and fly to them. Don't listen to useless noise around you (I think you said something like that in one of your video ;)) and keep moving towards your goal.
I am just really happy see another person with a similar attitude. I am 43 now and excited to see what life will bring me.
Thx a lot for your words, and keep pushing as well. We got this!
Shiba
Wow didnt expect to see a guy just walking through Berlin and dropping some of the best life advice ever in just 5 minutes. Thank you for the Video and the kind words. I wonder where did you get this knowledge?
First of all, thank you for dropping in, and even more so for taking a moment to give back - it means a hell of a lot to me - and says a lot about you to take a moment out of your day to raise up mine!
I'll answer this as best as I can, because I really value the question and hope it gives context to where I'm coming from.
I've had a long path in the arts, and I've known some of its great highs and its deepest lows. I won't go deeply that story here, but will give you some colours.
After hustling through the London music scene (good days and some wild times playing with some great bands like The Libertines!) I knew that if I wanted to "make it" that I needed a) to get much better b) and to do that needed to live somewhere cheaper where I could give it more time.
So I packed my life over into my van with my band at the time, holed up in a disused building (at the start), played hundreds of gigs in the Tacheles (one of the great post Wall Arts Communities) - but then the band imploded, just as we were having interesting conversations with Universal.
I'd struggled with my mental health for years, had a panic attack under Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse (you can hear the song documenting it on Spotify called by the same name - Jim Kroft there too) - and decided to go solo.
Again, hustled my way through the underground.
Eventually got signed by EMI, the label of my dreams as two of my favourite bands The Beatles and Radiohead were on it.
I released my album but the next day Universal bought the label and axed all the new acts. My record was in the shops for a day and I was the last artist to ever release an album on the old EMI.
I knew I was not done but needed to sort myself out financially so pivoted hard into filmmaking.
It went well, and then a lot of wild things happened for some years. I was offered tours in Russia, China, East Africa and then shot documentaries on The Refugee Crisis in 2016 + raised money (The March of Hope) and then one of the rise of Populism in America (called "A Conversation with America).
Eventually I got signed by a new label called Radicalis, the best independent in Germany. A song from it called "Obstacles" called playlisted by Spotify, hit 500,000 plays but then the pandemic hit, the label went under and again I was a free agent.
As the world went digital during the pandemic, I receded into a deep isolation while living alone and dealing with the horrible heartbreak.
I wrote new songs (The Isolation Diaries), took goods to Poland to support the war relief, then got back to my freelance life - which was going very well.
During all of this time, I lived my life.
At times there were successes from a worldly point of view - and at other times there were great, well, what felt like failures.
But all during it I worked on myself and my deeper journey was to learn that, as humans -- we are who are and not what we do.
I understand action is important.
But too often nowadays we define ourselves, and each other, on outward metrics of success.
The only metric that has ever mattered is this:
Can you live with yourself?
Are you staying spiritually alive?
Can you feel the morning sun on your face, pristine and clear, and know you are in life.
And for that matter, are you in tune with how absurdly special to exist is.
That weather we like it or no, each of us, ever form, every being, every atom, is a miracle.
Part of something greater than itself.
While expressive of it all.
It has taken me a lifetime to reconcile with the fluctuations of success and failure.
And to learn that they are, as the world understands it, entirely irrelevant.
Who you are - and what you make of it - that is what matters.
The Zen Buddhists call it the "face we have before we are born."
Dam, there is much to play for.
And now, at this point in my life, there is something far greater to me than any fanciful notion of worldly recognition.
It is to put out some of the knowledge that I have accrued, rising up, falling down, making mistakes, learning to forgive - myself and others.
For me the great reward of all of this - is the sharing.
And that your experience might matter to another.
And, in some strange way, your comment is a full circle for me.
Because TH-cam is a tough platform.
But what I'm enjoying is that I just want to give, where I can - and to do it with joy - in the time that I have.
The reward is to reach one person. And if it happens to pass - to help or matter to them.
That makes everything worthwhile.
And so - you asked me where a little of my broken, fractured, celebratory knowledge comes from?
It comes from life.
And each hard part - from a panic attack to an abyss - has been worth it.
I wouldn't exchange any of that experience for all the success in the world
Because at the last, what matters, is to know you have lived.
And that I have.
I look forward to keeping in touch, and if I'm blessed to do so, to share a part of the journey ahead with you.
Take care, and thank you for being part of my own full circle.
Jim
all the very best
Thank you for this
Thank you in turn for taking a moment to give back to me too, i really appreciate it.
At one of my lowest moments in life, someone I respected stopped me, looked me in the eye and said:
“Jim, there’s good stuff for you out there in life.”
It was a time i was staring into a dark abyss.
But it reached into me.
Like a torch beam.
Wherever you are, and whatever your circumstances:
There’s good stuff out there for you.
Keep on. Sometimes it’s the most radical thing in the world: to choose to believe, even when life is causing you not to.
That’s called faith - and i mean independent of the great religions.
It takes a lot of courage to have faith, but trusting that there was good stuff out there for me has, gradually, spiralled things upwards.
Keep in there!
Greetings from Berlin,
Jim