Dreaming About Now.

Hey folks! I haven't been posting a lot lately, and I believe I'm still short on an India post or two. Hopefully that happens at some point. This was just an idea that came up that I thought I'd take a moment to write about.

Every now and then, you get people asking you, "Where do you see yourself in five years time?" Or one year, or ten years. Or even more! I always found this question so hard, personally. Firstly, because I find even looking a few days ahead hard enough! Looking months ahead, years ahead - just seems crazy to me. I don't get it.

But it's also because, to me, a few years is rather far away. Why can't it be now? (Admittedly, this is probably a bit of a product of our microwave culture. I'm a bit of a victim of that one. Really struggle with short-term goals versus long-term goals.) Instead of dreaming about where I could be in five years time - I tend to dream about what I could be doing right now. Because I think there's rather a lot that I could be doing right now, that I don't need to be waiting however long for.

For me, right now, there's a couple of specific things that I could see myself doing.
The first is my albums. At one point, I think I mentioned that I'm working on recording an album. That's actually part of a four-album series, looking at (what I consider to be) four core ideas about who God is - life, love, light, and truth. I wrote the first album during 2014, my Impart year. Since then, I've been working on trying to record it, bit by bit. I now have a team together, but finding time with different people is super-difficult. The second album I started writing pretty much as soon as I'd finished the first. The original idea was that I'd write one album a year; and release one album a year. So I wrote the first album in 2014, release it 2015. Write the second one 2015, release it 2016. Write the third one 2016, release it 2017. Write the fourth one 2017, release it 2018. Well, I'm on schedule as far as the writing goes - I've recently realised that I've finished writing the second album (love), and I'm on to the third (light). And I have barely started recording the first (life)!
So what I'd want to be doing there is spending a lot more of my time on getting that happening, because I'm ridiculously behind on that side of things. And then - get the songs out there! Doing an album launch, and then (ideally) doing a mini-tour with each one around a few different churches and such. Because each song on each album also has a story, and a way that it links to the others; and each album has a story as a whole as well. And as part of playing them, I'd be telling that story, and sharing my story of going on this journey of writing these songs. Which is also why I want to get on to that - because my journey is now in the Light phase, but I haven't even shown people the Life phase! It's kinda crazy!

As well as that, there's my book. I believe I've mentioned this before as well. I'm writing a book called Son, Brother, Bride, mainly aimed at Christian guys, around who we are and who God is - and how the two are very intertwined and such. I've recently been writing a lot more on this (and will be getting back to doing that after I've done this post!), and have nearly finished my first draft. There's still a heck of a lot of work to do - there are whole sections that need redoing, and bits that need reworking - but then at least it would be complete as a whole! Then I need to go into editing and inviting people to read it and give me feedback as that's happening (if that's something you'd be interested in, drop me a line!), and finally publishing and getting it out there. At this stage, I don't know what that's going to look like - whether it will just be online, or if it will be in print as well. Chances are, I'll start with the former, and if I'm able to get some sales happening, the latter will come along. But this is a book that I really want to get out to a lot of people, because I believe that it has a message that will effect and help a lot of people. Perhaps I could do a book launch as well as an album launch! That would be cool. Doing a bit of a message based around the ideas from the book.

Now, in saying these two things - there are still other things I'd want to do, being me. I'm the sort of person that always wants to be doing a hundred different things at once! But really, this is what I want to be doing with my time. Why aren't I? Well, because rent and food and petrol and such. I'm trying to put in time as I have it - but it's fairly sparse, really.

So yeah :) That's what I dream about doing right now. Rather than in two or three years time, or five years time, or ten years time. If anyone has ideas about how to make that happen, I'm all ears. (Though not actually, because 1 Corinthians 12:17.)