Creative by proxy.

THE VICARIOUS LIFESTYLE

Try, try and try again.

Or, alternatively.

Recognise your limitations.

Ambition versus pragmatism, desire placed against common sense, devil may care or down to earth?

I sometimes think that it's a shame I never got the chance to take any music lessons at school. Maybe I'd have unlocked a talent that has, instead, now been dormant for decades. And then I remember my efforts to learn musical instrument. Several efforts, over several years. And I know you can't describe as 'dormant' something which doesn't exist.

The sad fact is that, no matter how much I might try, no matter how much I might want it to be true, I could no more be a musician than Dudley Moore's one legged man could have landed the role of Tarzan. (With apologies to younger readers....)

I did spend several years treading the boards, putting myself in front of audiences and pretending to be someone else. I quite liked appearing as someone, anyone, else, because they were usually an improvement on who I felt I was. There were plenty of roles I took on, even the occasional lead. But small amateur dramatic groups are always notoriously short of youngish men, so my successes were largely by default. When I later joined a much larger group, playing to much larger crowds, the bigger parts were suddenly that bit less available to me. I could blame the fact that I was no longer one of the youngsters, as middle age suddenly seemed imminent, but I know that's not the reason. I simply wasn't good enough. Competent, reasonably reliable at this level, but that was it. Recognise your limitations.

I enjoy writing (or why else would I be sticking these posts up in public?). Far more than was the case with music, I have made countless efforts to turn myself into the writer my imagination tells me I could be. Deserve to be, if I'm having a good day. Creative writing courses came and went. The search for subject matter has ebbed and flowed like the tides down in Newhaven Harbour. There have been countless beginnings, the occasional middle, and hardly a single ending. And those felt imposed rather than natural. If I open up the folder with stories I've begun and never completed there's a lot of scrolling through screens to do.

I can manage to knock out a reasonable bit of comic poetry for special occasions when required. Very much written to be spoken rather than read though. It made an amusing alternative to the usual boring speeches and contrived jokes that other managers delivered at leaving dos and the like. (I had plenty of contrived jokes too, but you can get away with them when they rhyme!) But personalised poems are dead and buried after their one-off performance.

Visual arts? Ha, ha, not a chance. Even my stick men look as if they have life threatening injuries.

No, I have come to accept that I am not, despite wishes to the contrary, a truly creative person.  Which is why living in Edinburgh is such a compensation.  If you can't be creative yourself, the next best thing is to satisfy your craving watching people who are genuinely talented.  I have become the vicarious creative.

From house concerts to folk clubs to concert venues to theatres to comedy clubs to street acts of all kinds.  Not to mention the galleries and arthouse cinemas.  There's something going on here all through the year and I intend to make the most of it.  Compensation (for being me?).

Then there's the chance to overdose every once in a while.  So many events surrounding Xmas and, especially, New Year.  The Leith Festival.  The International Film Festival.  The Meadows Festival.  The Jazz & Blues Festival.  And, starting in just a couple of weeks from now, the biggest arts festival on the planet.  

I might not be creative, but I can create my own happiness from those who are.