Mac Miller & Easter, Toxic Creativity, Pride and Prejudice

Diary of a Writer

Mac Miller & Easter

My first year of university was ten years ago.

Easter break. Everyone in my accommodation had departed for home. I stayed, my girlfriend at the time came to spend the two weeks with me. The place felt like our own home. Sunshine, pop tarts, Pretty Little Liars and Mac Miller.

For those two weeks, something strange occurred. My sleeping pattern was a mess, late night and early morning clubbing, partying and gaming will have that effect. But for those two weeks, my girlfriend and I started waking up at six in the morning and then at five in the morning.

The weather was beautiful, and I think, without saying a word, we both wanted to be awake for every second of daylight. As though we both knew this was a special time, that would never dawn again. It was.

Mac Miller was one of our favourite artists, and during this Easter break, we listened to his album Watching Movies with the Sound Off. At the time I was still flirting with the idea of making music, writing lyrics, making beats. I had stories to tell, and music is such a beautiful expression of self.

Regretfully, I abandoned my music making aspirations. I couldn’t sing, which birthed frustration, and I naively thought singing wasn’t a skill you could learn. My rapping was poor, and my beat making was poorer. I thought I wasn’t good enough, I also had another dream I wanted to pursue after uni.

So I quit.

But listening to Mac Miller’s album during that time was magical. Mac was what I aspired to be as an artist. Soulful and conscious, a storyteller, a rapper and a singer.

Ten years later, the same strange eventuality occurred. Except no university, no girlfriend. Just me. My sleeping routine is still wonky around the edges, working night shifts skews the dough.

But during this Easter I started waking up at six in the morning and then at five in the morning. History repeating itself, a ghost of the past coming round for tea.

So I listened to Watching Movies with the Sound Off.

Mac’s first album, Blue Slide Park, still had its roots in party rap, or frat rap, as they say in America. There are some good tracks, but you know this man is capable of more. The album received criticism for its lack of depth. Mac Miller also knew he was capable of more.

So he took a risk, rolled the dice, dared to do something great. He created an album of psychedelic, hypnotic sounds. With jungle drums and bird calls. With introspective, meaningful lyrics. Electric guitar and pupil dilating beats.

Then there’s Objects in the Mirror, which is quite simply a masterful song. I had to pause the album and just started ranting out loud at how good this song is.

Goosebumps littered my arm like Braille as I listened in awe to this work of art. There’s another version of the song from a live album, but I forgot how good the original is. Simply sublime. If I can create a song like this one day, I could die a happy man.

Which is a lie, I’ll never be satisfied or happy.

I wonder if in 2035, during Easter, I’ll start waking up at five in the morning, with ocean skies and sunshine. Two decades’ worth of ghosts. I don’t know. But I do know one thing. I’ll still be listening to Mac Miller.

Toxic Creativity

Once something takes hold of me, it’s consuming, engulfing my entire being like quicksand. It can be for days or years. For that week, Mac was the only thing riding the carousel. I couldn’t stop thinking about his death, his music, and my own desire to leave my mark on people’s lives like he did.

I watched several documentaries about his life on YouTube. In his house in LA, he had a room called The Sanctuary. A room where he created music. I realised after watching one particular video that I have the same toxic addiction to creativity that Mac does.

"…part of the mentality was like.. if I die when I leave this room— cuz that was my fear— like, I won't survive in the world, I will survive in this little room called 'the sanctuary'. That I'm okay in, and I hate everywhere else. So I did not leave. It's dark and depressing, like obviously it is. It's bad. But it's beautiful, it's fucking beautiful. I am now in a beautiful place, so I can look back and be like, that was fucking amazing. I did it, and I made it out alive." - Mac Miller

My writing, my music, all of it is created at my desk. Yes, I could go to a cafe and write, but most cafes are utter dumps. I’m certainly not taking my beautiful MacBook Pro and putting it on a table with coffee stains and baby dribble. I did go recently to a place called Shugborough. I brought a couple of books and a pad, and after purging the table with an anti-bacterial wipe, I did some writing.

But I felt exposed, naked, uncomfortable. Not with sipping green tea in the sun at a lovely country house. But with trying to create with others around. I know none of them care about what I’m scribbling on my notepad. But inside my study, at my desk, I can fully express myself.

Sometimes I talk to myself out loud, sometimes I get up from my leather chair and act out a scene, a one man play. I can sing and rap. I can create when I’m alone, in my dark paradise, with my music and my herbal tea. Sometimes with a naughty glass of wine.

But this means that sometimes I never want to leave the room. Because if I leave, I can’t create, and if I can’t create, then I’m still the nobody without a novel, without an album. A nobody without eyes, without ears.

I’m addicted to creating. Because, after a rather long time, due to my rather moronic brain. I’ve found who I am and what I was put on this beautiful, despicable world to do.

To tell stories.

But I know being entombed in a dark room, an unnamed pharaoh. Isn’t living life to the fullest. I have to sometimes say goodbye to the room and go out into the world, to hear a robin sing, or watch clouds float on a canvas of sapphire, or speak to a stranger for the first and last time.

I’m not a balanced person, but I know finding balance in your life creates harmony. So… I’m trying.

Pride and Prejudice

I’ve actually read an abysmally small amount of classic novels.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Feeling the weight of this, after finishing House of Cards by Michael Dobbs, I went on Goodreads and decided to read the book that was perched at the top of the Classics list.

The book was Pride and Prejudice. I’m only on chapter eight, but so far I’m enjoying the novel. Even if Mr Darcy’s bluntness and pride remind me of myself, unfortunately. Austen’s humour is top-notch, and her use of sarcasm, irony and deep reflections of people’s worst selves adds so much flavour to the interactions and dialogue. The writing is quite superb, and once again, I am humbled as a writer.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the novel, and I’ll try to read some before work tonight. So much to do, so little time.