“I wanna feel the car crash”
I grabbed the KINK Live 11 album at my local Starbucks last week. The album is a set of acoustic studio recordings from artists that have played in the KINK Live Lounge. I bought the album because it had some of my favorite songs and I love acoustic music. But I have also really enjoyed several of the songs on the album I was not familiar with. Specifically “Car Crash” by Matt Nathanson. Now you might be thinking that the title of that song sounds pretty dreary, but if you listen it’s even worse :) But for some reason I have attached myself to the lyrics of this song as if they are a metaphor for my current life, and its become my theme song.
As I have mentioned on my blog before, I am transitioning from full time employment to running my own business. My conversion to full-time freelancing should be complete before the year is over. This is a scary and exciting time for me. I get such a rush every time I have a small succcess, be that an application that the client loves, or even just securing a new lead. The song starts off with the lyrics “I’m wide awake and so alive. Ringing like a bell” And when I hear this I can’t help but feel like its talking about me, I am so alive with excitement about the prospects in front of me that I can hardly keep still sometimes. The song continues “Tell me this is paradise. And not someplace I fell. ‘Cause I keep on fallin’ down” which outlines my fears about running my own business. Is this really as great as it seems? or am I just missing the signs that should alert me to oncoming disaster. And god knows I have seem my share of mistakes and mishaps.
The chorus of the song continues “I wanna feel the car crash”. When I say this out loud it sounds crazy. But I see this more of wanting to accept the disaster that is right in front of me. And in these times of economic trials, what could be more of a disaster than giving up a full-time job with great benifits? “I wanna feel the capsize” defines that I am ready to accept the gravity of my self imposed disaster. And “I wanna feel the bomb drop, the earth stop. Til I’m satisfied” describes that I have accepted what this “disaster” could bring, but that I am ready to feel it and get it done with. “I wanna feel the car crash. Cause I’m dyin’ on the inside” I have been employed by the same company for 5 years, and I have been working on the same projects for nearly 9 years. During that time I feel like desire to solve the same types of problems over and over has waned. I feel like if I am not excited to be getting it done every day then I am slowly letting myself go. I am very excited by the prospect of working on new projects with different companies. “I wanna let go and know. That I’ll be alright, alright” I am ready to let go of the saftey and security of my day job and having already survived the “bomb drop” feeling, I will know that I am alright. I am very excited about the opportunity to work as a freelance developer, consultant and trainer. I want to share what I have learned and I want to help as many as I can.
The next verse I will summarize in whole “Just push me ’til I have to fly. I’ve shed my skin, my scars. Take me deep out past the lights. Where nothing dims these stars. Nothing dims these stars” I am ready to take on the challenges that will cause me to really test myself and push my limits. There are obstacles I will have to overcome, but I think I can really shine. I am ready to make a name for myself and become a player in the community at large. Building a business for myself benefits the entire developer ecosystem. I am ready to fly.
I suppose anyone can take what they want from a song or a poem. I just feel so charged every time I hear this song and I wanted to share this experience with you. Thanks for letting me talk about my personal trials and challenges here on this blog. Please enjoy the song via the imeem player below.
Hey Sim, thanks for giving us a glimpse of your personal thoughts. That’s a very brave thing to do. Hopefully this will inspire others in the community to do the same. I know it has for me.
The community is great at dispensing information about APIs, mashups, frameworks, etc. but I’m a struggling freelance developer myself. I have my own doubts about my skills and knowledge. So it helps when I hear someone like Kieth Peters struggling with some code, or John Grden facing his insecurities and playing drums in a competition. The people I look up to – yes, including you – are just as human, have just as many doubts about themselves as the developer who’s opening a Flex 101 book for the first time.
Great post, Simeon, thanks for sharing.
And that’s a great song. I think we’ll be seeing/hearing alot more from Matt Nathanson in the near future. I’m listening to his “At The Point” live album now, and the whole thing is good.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen Matt live probably 20 times now — he’s based in California and played/plays a lot of shows with other club bands around here. When I worked for a music dotcom, we promoted Matt on our site for a while. He’s an incredibly nice guy…but his manager was kind of a jerk. :)
It’s kind of staggering to watch him “blow up” like this — the first several times I saw him play, it was for no more than 10 kids, most of whom were there for the headliner and had no idea who Matt was. :)
Check out his earlier albums “ernst” and “still waiting for spring” — IMHO they’re 2 of his best.
I too am in the process of going independent and leaving the “real day job” thing behind. I never noticed Matt’s lyrics as a tie-in to that part of life, but now that you mention it, it does fit pretty well. :)
Good luck!
-nolan
That’s a really good song! When its pulled off right, nothing beats acoustic music.
Cheers,
Davo
I added you to Twitter after reading your blog because you’ve obviously been doing this for a while and I figured I could learn something.
Apparently there was a twitter glitch (which I took a screenshot of, when trying to add you again) and you weren’t actually added when I clicked the button. You then twittered something about me trying to up my followers, which is a bit insulting, but I wanted to clear it up. Feel free to email me or add me and direct message me ;)
Sim- sounds like worst case you have a fallback career as a music promoter- i just bought that song too ;-)
Good post and kudos for putting it out there like this.
sean
Thanks for the support guys. And I am really glad you liked the song too. I can’t get enough of it. I have added it to my fire up tunes along with The Underdog by spoon.
Jared sorry for the confusion. There are certainly much nastier ways to get followers on twitter. And I should never use the technical merits of Twitter (fail whale for god’s sake) as the beacon of truth. I actually thought it was a pretty good idea, cuz twitter tells people when they are followed but not when people stop following.
I didn’t mean any harm by it and hopefully we can become good online friends :)
Looking forward to it Simeon—I’ll be keeping up on your blog from now on…really good stuff here.
The Twitter scheme is rather clever, wish I could take credit. Gets me thinking rather I should auto add people back or not.
Thanks for making this known