Between the delusion and pragmatism is where I exist.
I say delusion because some of what I dreamt of might have seemed impossible and/or crazy at the point of inception. I actually remember some people scoffed at my ideas. I continue to have visions, ideas, and dreams that might seem far-fetched to some. But it is so very important to have a clear picture of where you want to go, however crazy it seems. Without the vision in your mind, you won’t get there. You just don’t.
At the same time, you have to understand how things work and know the rules of engagement. I hear many people say (I used to be one of them), “oh, I don’t want to play games. I’m a straight shooter and I can’t do the game thing.” It sounds cool and all but this attitude makes your life a lot harder. I know. I did a really hard thing for a while. Lol. It serves us to understand how human operates (which is totally irrational and infuriating at times) and how things are done in general, so that you can use the knowledge to your advantage. Only by knowing how things work, you can go outside of it and then make the game work for you. And that is being pragmatic.
The thing is, you don’t want to get stuck in being pragmatic. Yes, you can be totally successful and happy playing within the lines but to make one’s own mark, you have to figure out how to color outside of the lines. And your vision is what pulls you outside of the box. You can think of it as walking on the thin line between those two elements, or perhaps as a pendulum swinging from one end to the other: between delusion and pragmatism. It’s dreaming while awake.
The Jazz Gallery will be 25 next year. By anyone’s estimate, it is a feat: for a small non-profit art organization that is dedicated Jazz and creative music (which is a small niche!!) to thrive for a quarter century. I talked about this before but there has been so many times early on, when Dale suggested that we quit, on a monthly basis. My “delusion” was that somehow we’d be okay and that we should keep going. I’m calling it delusion only in hindsight. I simply didn’t think the quitting was a good idea back then but when I look back at that moment in my life, quitting was the sensible thing to do: it is actually scary how reckless I was. Lol. But my vision/delusion was that The Jazz Gallery would be what it is today and for whatever reasons, I believed that. So strongly.
Pragmatic part of making The Jazz Gallery what it is today has not been easy at all. It has been a combination of falling on my face multiple times and blood and sweat and tears and taking baby steps. I didn’t know anything about running a venue nor how the non-profit work. Learning on the job sounds cool but in reality, it’s rough and that’s all I got.
The challenges of running the venue got to me at one point and there have been times when I forgot about my “delusions.” I still remember when a friend said to me, “you have to think big if you want to do big. You can’t be doing small things.” It shook me and upset me when I heard that. I always thought of myself as a reckless adventurer yet the reality of living was getting to me and I had abandoned my “delusions.” I became small and was on a defense. I did, for a moment, get upset at my friend. I thought to myself that he knew nothing about the hardship I was going through to make it work and I thought it was so easy for him to just say that.
But he was right. Practical things are not magical and I needed to get back to my delusions and start dreaming stupid. Again.
It’s a constant struggle, though. To keep dreaming and to keep my feet on the ground simultaneously. But I now know that that is what it takes to fly. People thought the Wright Brothers were insane to think that we can fly. Their delusions and their understanding of laws of physics made it possible. They needed both. It would not have happened with just one or the other. And everything else that are amazing is like that: part crazy and part sweat. Waking dream is where I’d like to be at all times.