Brothers and sisters, can you spare some therapy?

There are those who are born knowing what their purpose is. If you count yourself amongst them, give thanks. For me, life has been a meandering search for meaning. The search has gifted me with a modicum of wisdom, alongside a swirling eddy of doubt and a heart tinged with regret.

Playing a set in Florida, April 20, 2025.

It is said that our childhood self develops coping strategies for the environment they find themselves in, and the recurrence of those patterns define us throughout adulthood. So I keep trying to go back, trying to remember. Where did I develop the strategies that keep me chasing my own tail?

I was once an analogue photographer. I spent hours in dark rooms, fingers dipped in chemicals, holding slippery pieces of coated papers, waiting for images to appear. Bathed in the dim red lights, the images were mysterious and filled with hope. Brought into the light of day their flaws became glaring, every spec of dust a reason to curse and start over.

My childhood memories are like those latent images, clipped onto strings as they drip dry in the dim red light. Perhaps there is a therapy that can help me drag them into daylight, but even before the tariffs I couldn’t afford such luxuries. If I could only get back all the money I spent on booze and put it into therapy...

My relationship with money has been an abusive one. The banks all saw me coming. My student loan debt is nearly what it was when I graduated 30 years ago. I’m the archetypical artist who sucks at financial planning.

The therapist I can’t afford tells me to stop thinking in these negative terms. The analogue photographer in me tells me to shine light through the negatives to create some positives. I know.

I know.

But knowledge is not wisdom; the patterns don’t change without extreme effort.

A few months ago I wrote a Substack about my time in the military, and it really resonated with people. I earned some paid subscribers. A little glimmer of hope that I could use my talent for writing to pay off my student debt. I made a pledge to myself to write every day. And then I stopped writing every day.

One of the haunting patterns from childhood is that I can’t seem to finish anything I start. Every ounce of success I achieve gets amplified by my ego and then I give up.

As a teen I wanted so much to be a rock star. I loved playing the guitar. Once I got better than ninety percent of my peers my ego decided I had succeeded. I practiced less and partied more. I became an expert at addiction, got kicked out of two bands, and gave up. It took nearly forty years to get back into a band.

That’s the pattern. I become decent, my ego tells me I am at the top. I stop practicing, my attention goes elsewhere. The project stalls. I have to spend my time elsewhere to survive, and my passions wither.

It has happened with music, photography, writing, and podcasting. It happened in the Marines. It happens with my yoga teaching. It was the fall of my vegan activism. It happens in relationships. It’s happening with my carpentry work. People around me think I am a renaissance man, but inside I just feel failure all the time. Failure and regret.

Maybe it began with the music. There is no art I love more than music. In the haze of my teenage drug abuse I gave up my dreams of playing in a band to join the Marines. After getting kicked out of the Marines I gave it up again to become a photographer. I never stopped playing. I have always loved it so much. But I never believed in myself enough to follow through.

Here I am now. I’m at the event horizon of my sixtieth decade. I’m bringing all the contact sheets from my past out of the darkroom and examining them with a loop beneath the bright lights, but my eyes are not what they once were. Tell me baby, where did I go wrong?

I love photography, some say I am great at it. It just doesn’t fill my heart like sharing a song does. I can sometimes make a living with it. It’s usually enough. It doesn’t keep the regret from enveloping my heart when I sit alone in the darkroom of my soul.

Yoga has taught me to breathe through it. I don’t complain much. My life is good.

I took a pause from writing here. I feel an overwhelming need to do things that pay because my debt is so big. When the bills come I drop all my creative endeavors. I need all my “free time” to make money. Then again, I need to write or my heart withers and the clouds of regret begin to swarm around me.

So I’ve come up with a plan. Instead of writing well-researched articles with lots of hyperlinks and outside sources, I will just write like this. From my imperfect heart, from my insecure psyche, from my human soul. I’ll find the time. I must.

I’ve been thumb-typing this post on a bus from Boston to Springfield MA. Tomorrow I’m going to see AC⚡️DC with an old friend. Their guitarist Angus Young is living my dream, running around on stage with his long grey locks flowing while Brian Johnson screams out innuendos. My inner child can get lost in it. I’ve been on the Highway to Hell for most of my life, and it still brings me joy.

Meanwhile my girlfriend bought me a Fender Strat for my birthday. I’m learning classic guitar solos from YouTube. Im playing open mics at the local Kava lounge in Asheville. We sing in a hippie choir. We’ve got a kirtan band that keeps getting better. I’m finding my way back home.

I’m going to heal my inner child. Or at least continue to ask his forgiveness. Maybe along the way I’ll earn enough subscriptions to pay for some therapy. Or maybe the writing will be therapy enough.