Why am I so intense?

aurelis said:

Projects that I take on and lead creatively become intense as I can become really obsessive and perfectionist, and have little understanding on how to scale according to the project.

I’m curious what kind of projects you are referring to here. Work projects? Creative ventures? Just generally anything you work on?

I’m asking because I know in the music composition realm being intensely passionate about your projects can actually be a huge boon. It’s so much better to be intense about your projects than to half-a** them. On the other hand, when you feel like:

aurelis said:

There’s this constant feeling that I need to change the world, and do something big.

In the music composition realm, that can be a downfall. “I need to write a whole album” and “I need to make a complete symphony” are two thoughts that really destroyed my love of writing music for a while. Those are HUGE projects that I wanted to do to change the world and get my name out there. It took reframing my mindset towards creating altogether to rekindle a love for the work again. Now I write just for myself, and I can be as intense or not as I like.

I don’t know if that helps at all, because it kind of depends on what kind of projects you are referring to, but I hope it does.

What you said about music composition is literally what has killed the joy for me. I also thought solely on making music, and not as much on promoting it and sharing it once done, which also felt like I put in an awful lot of work for a small payoff. For context, I managed to produce and put together multiple albums over the course of time, and without a plan besides working through it in my head, I managed to have them done, and collaborate with people. But now I almost have rejected all the music that I've made due to the high expectations of wanting them to, like you saiid  'change the world' and 'get my name out there'. 

THis year I've been working on a project with other people, and I realised because of my way of independently creating things and having high expectations, I feel very maladjusted to really working side by side with others towards a creative goal, and now realising this, I am afraid of collaborating with others on a project.

The intensity has resulted in some really nice work I think, but I feel as if I have not given myself time to create for the sake of creating, rather than to prove to the world something. If any of that makes sense haha

What you said about music composition is literally what has killed the joy for me. I also thought solely on making music, and not as much on promoting it and sharing it once done, which also felt like I put in an awful lot of work for a small payoff. For context, I managed to produce and put together multiple albums over the course of time, and without a plan besides working through it in my head, I managed to have them done, and collaborate with people. But now I almost have rejected all the music that I've made due to the high expectations of wanting them to, like you saiid  'change the world' and 'get my name out there'. 

THis year I've been working on a project with other people, and I realised because of my way of independently creating things and having high expectations, I feel very maladjusted to really working side by side with others towards a creative goal, and now realising this, I am afraid of collaborating with others on a project.

The intensity has resulted in some really nice work I think, but I feel as if I have not given myself time to create for the sake of creating, rather than to prove to the world something. If any of that makes sense haha

Thank you for this message, it really helps, truly! For context: I studied music at university a few years ago, and started trying to make a career of music for the past 3-4 years following. I've managed to connect with many creatives locally and made a name of sorts, so I feel the pressure to try and prove that I am a competent musician a lot. I was taking an applying for anything and everything to prove myself as a 'complete' musician, and mentally, I feel stretched out, and I don't feel as if I've allowed myself to be authentic to myself. That meant saying yes to everything, and then not realising why I am actually saying yes.

that question of 'what part of the process of writing music is my favourite' I feel is an important one. I am starting to try and figure that out. It's interesting, I even took a very long time to respond to this message as I wanted to have a complete answer to respond to you haha. 

Thanks for sharing me your music. I'll drop you a message directly with my music soon.

Also, if you ever need someone to check out your music, let me know. I’m interested in hearing what kind of music you make!

aurelis said:

I feel as if I have not given myself time to create for the sake of creating, rather than to prove to the world something

Oh yeah, that makes tons of sense. A little background on me, I’m a former music composition professor, so I always felt pressured to make immaculate and grand music because others were looking up to me to be great at what I do. Trying to prove myself killed the joy completely.

I can also understand feeling incompatible with working alongside others. I remember working with a lyricist one time and I absolutely freaked out in private because I couldn’t understand how to make our visions of the work come together. It always seems to work out, but it can be a painful process to compensate.

Maybe part of the reason it is a little harder for us Autistics to work creatively with others is because our inner world is so vastly unique and different? I don’t know.

My advice is to step back and think “What part of the process of writing music is my favorite?” Focus on that. For me, it’s hearing the end product of the sheet music writing right before sending it to performers. I realized that getting performers stress me out, so now I just finish products without intending to get them performed. I just write the sheet music, export the audio, and slap it on this Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/disco-at-the-milk-bar. If people listen to it, cool. If not, I will.