Wallitner Weekly 13

Hello everyone!

A lot of productive things happened this past week.

Okay so I wasn’t very productive this week. Heat has a funny way of draining my energy and my motivation. The most productive thing this week was my AC unit. The “closed door” idea was great in theory, but since the door was closed the AC could not cool the room.

(As I am writing this my Fiancee let out a war cry in an attempt to motivate herself to get out of bed. It has been a week.)

I did manage to sketch out a few more ideas for the Song of Hope (it needs a fancy title). And I also came up with a gameplan to have my music theory curriculum in a marketable state by the end of the month. My plan is to have the modules filled enough that I can market the curriculum to schools in the fall. Music theory is a difficult thing to teach in a classroom setting, so I am going to try and lighten that load.

I have a lot planned for next week too!

Next week I will be writing and making theory videos full time. I have a schedule mapped out and everything. The weather is cooling down and my motivation is heating up!

I Think People Should Write More.

Like fifteen weeks ago, give or take, I was wrapping up a massive overhaul of my website. I was trying to reinvent and rebrand myself. I wanted my website to be a genuine representation of me. Whether that was me the poet, me the composer, or me the twenty-three year old who knows nothing about anything practical, but knows he likes to tell stories. The best way I could think of to capture myself in all three of those very different lights was to write a newsletter.

I will admit, this started out as an extremely selfish endeavor and I loved watching the number go up as I gained subscribers. I loved the attention that I got for tricking my readers into thinking I am wise (imposter syndrome is a real and terrible thing). From a business standpoint, it was genius because I now have a built in accountability system. If I don’t do anything productive this week, all of my subscribers (at this point that is mostly family and close friends) will know. Thats a feeling I like to avoid if at all possible.

The scariest part of it all was right after I decided that every Friday at 4 pm I would send out an email to anyone who wished to receive it. I would tell them what I did, what I plan to do, and some sort of short story. The first two parts were easy, I just had to write what happened or didn’t happen in my work life. The last part though, that scared the heck out of me. Even now, thirteen weeks later, I struggle to choose a four letter word to describe just how scared I was. I have no idea who will read this eventually, and I don’t want my past self to have scared off a future reader/client/friend with my vulgarities.

But, like most things, it gets easier with time.

This week a friend of mine who has a pet bird sent me and my friend who writes short stories an expressive essay. Oddly enough, both of these friends are very good trumpet players. My bird owning friend talked about how he was never a reader. He had always thought that reading was something for smart people, something he did not consider himself to be. He would rather watch movies and play video games than read (I was once very much the same). However, he said that in his association with my friend who writes short stories and myself, he was started to read more. This newfound hobby of reading has since led him to writing as a form of self expression.

In school we are often told to read and to write, which I find counter intuitive. I quickly became an expert on NOT reading. I could write multi-page papers worth full points on books I never read. This was my greatest sin in college as well as my greatest asset. I didn’t need to travel through pages, I only needed to travel to google. And if google didn’t have the answer, I made one up and defended it as if it were the gospel truth. My thought being, if you can convince a teacher that you read a book and understood it so well that you noticed something they didn’t, when in fact you didn’t read that book at all… then that book probably wasn’t worth reading anyway.

In my mind, if you allow a person to discover reading on their own, I believe they will also find writing along the way. And I think writing is important. Not because grammar and vocabulary are important. Not because its cathartic to write something down and have others relate to it. No, just like the genesis of the Wallitner Weekly, the motivation for this thought is entirely selfish.

I think of the stories my future grandkids will know about me because I wrote them down. The memories we will share that they were never apart of because I wrote them down. The things I did in my twenties that they will know because I wrote it down (only the good things though, I won’t write the bad things haha). My mother’s dad died when I was five and I know very little about him other than the stories that those who knew him can tell. Was he a dancer? Did he sing well? Someone would have to tell me. And when those who knew him are gone so too will he be.

I know that my grandfather had a major impact on my family. His wisdom has undoubtably affected me. I think about him often, though I barely know him. Had he written music or poetry or pros in the form of a weekly newsletter, perhaps I could pretend to know.

I tell people that I like to write stories, whether that be through music or some other means. That is not entirely accurate. I write a legacy day by day. One that I hope to reach years I could never dream to touch in my lifetime. I wish more people would write. NOTICE, I said Would write not Could write. If this story tells you anything it is that anyone CAN write. I wish more people WOULD write. There are memories of loved ones I will never know. Stories never told to anyone but those who were there. Thats not fair. And maybe I am selfish, but I want people to write so I can know them better. And I write so that they may better know me too.