Making Choices

Well here I still am - in St Petersburg Florida - Downtown... now in a starbucks not far from my place of residence. Lately I've had the priveledge to make choices on how to spend my time. I'm learning to say no sometimes. I'm reminded that my time is mine alone. I dont like playing just for money - I like playing first for the art and maybe second for the money - but there's also the social choices and the environments that give me choices. I'm learning where i belong and where I dont belong. People say they wanna make money - and they wanna play with me - and make money. Well thats fine for some people... in fact i agree I wanna make money too - but to them that means playing really crappy music. I can't do that. I need to always feel sensitive to the person of music. if noone stands up for art and music, It'll be abused and misused like a cheap drug and then become taboo, outcast. It's happened already and I'm tryin to hang on to my own. It's my child. It's what makes me go on and on even after I'm gone. It's my legacy and I'm very protective and passionate about the organism that I produce and cultivate. It does have a mind and life of it's own, just as our own minds have a mind of their own. We dont know always why we feel or think the things we do. We dont know what makes us ask questions, but it can be damaged, quieted, mutated, artificially and chemically altered, institutionaly quieted and formalized and controlled. That's why I make the choices I make. A lot of what I choose to do is in an effort to remain free and to remain potent. I have a love for life and I wanna make mine worthwhile and the standards I set for myself are different that of those around me. It's somewhat of a battle but I'm learning what sacrifices are strategically benificial. I've always liked the idea of living instinctively as if on autopilot. I dont like making choices but to me, that's the bridge and the door to freedom. I believe freedom is gained by those who make sacrifice, those who know the value of freedom and are willing to let go of the encumbrences around and within them in order to attain freedom. The choices I make get me there, or they get me farther away from that freedom.