Music and Relationships.... "You're great, but I'm just not feeling it..." and other nonsense

Shalom to all.

This is some kind of an experiment, basically a way to take my thoughts out of my head put them somewhere else. I don't expect many to read this, but for those that do read it, stop wasting your time and go learn to Torah.

While writing a song yesterday, I liked what I was playing, but I realized that I wasn't feeling that surge of emotion that overtakes me when I feel like I'm in the middle of composing an amazing song.

So I put the guitar down, and stopped writing.

And then I started thinking... whens the last time I actually had that surge of emotion? I think the first song I ever wrote (which was terrible), the first time I ever played with a band (I think our drummers mom left the house we were so bad), and then aside from Ashrei and Eishes Chayil, a bunch of mediocre songs.

I used to think that this emotional surge that took over my body was indicative that the song was special, that if I felt like I was being telaported to Gan Eiden while singing the chorus then I now "knew" that the song was "real."

So I put the guitar down. Then Jesse (my roommate) turns to me and says "hey man, that song was beautiful I really like it." So I think to myself, "thanks, but its just another dud, I'm not feeling anything." And so he tells me to keep playing it, so I do, and end up writing a verse and chorus, and then an intro, and then before I know it, I really like the song.

I then thought about how many songs with potential I killed due to some unfounded expectation that I believed was necessary to validate my feelings. I thought more, and realized that over the course of my brief professional tenure I have performed many times, often improvising a great and creative guitar solo (heres one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZbgiAUQJz8), and simply never feel that emotion.

I realized that this emotion is not a surge of realizaiton of emes, but rather is simply a nice feeling that shows up when the mood is right and really want to feel something.