Fans include original Deadheads, saggy senior citizens who flock to concerts in their old tie-dyed t-shirts to dance, eyes closed, deep in their own cosmic trances, looking as foolish as they possibly can be without a hint of shame or self-awareness. This, despite the fact that several band members, including their charismatic leader and virtuoso guitarist Jerry Garcia, aren’t in the Dead anymore because they’re actually dead. More than 50 years after they first played together, The Dead are more popular than ever. This seems to be the model for nearly every project I work on, the nature of how I experience the creative process. Eventually, if you’re lucky, you stumble on to something amazing. You try things, it doesn’t work, you try again. You got to suffer if you want to sing the blues. There is no ecstasy in concerts or life without those long, uncomfortable moments that precede it. But when the tedium of the interminable “Drums & Space” morphs into “Good Lovin” or “Sugar Magnolia,” it’s nothing but ecstatic. There are moments of boredom and downright irritation where the band just seems to be making noise.

Long, textured, more improvised than rehearsed. Life is more like a Grateful Dead concert. How boring to mindlessly follow some static, predestined path largely created from the expectations of others. For better and worse, probably in equal measure, my 22-year old self would have had a very hard time believing my life as it exists today.Īnd that’s a good thing. We all imagine a narrative for our lives and careers when we start out, one that will never turn out the way we thought it would. They justify dangerous behaviors like cigarette smoking by thinking that “pollution is going to kill me anyway,” or alcoholism as a positive trade-off for stress relief or a need for social lubrication. These are the great rationalizers, addicted to a perspective that generally has very little relation to real facts.

Certain political parties and politicians might come to mind, as may some of your business and personal acquaintances. Some people are doomed to live in a bubble of their own making.

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