Compressor Week: The Compressor gets Philosophical

Confessions of a Studio Owner by The Compressor

THE COMPRESSOR GETS PHILOSOPHICAL

Monthy Python:

‘Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable,

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table’

Many moons ago I was a geezer….a bit of a lad. After too many ales, I insisted on my mate Pat driving me home. A dark road and too many pints resulted in us colliding with a pedestrian crossing the road….hitting my side of the windscreen and continuing over the roof until he hit the tarmac behind the car. If that wasn’t tragic enough, having forced my mate to avoid doing a hit and run (he had enjoyed 9 pints,) I ran back up the road to see a small circle of pedestrians forming. What I am about say will verge on sensationalism, but I swear on my childrens’ life it was/is true. I came across a crutch, an orthopaedic leg…another crutch and another false leg! In the road lay a man of about 70…obviously without legs..groaning and generally looking like he was going to see the big man upstairs. To cut a long story short, the fuzz came….we got off  and the guy lived. WE even went to hospital to apologize the next day (although I’m not sure he could hear me.)

Over time the image has healed, but for years and years I saw the same thing every day. The clatter over my head followed by the prosthetics in the road. BUT…however unpleasant it was for me…..it was nothing compared to what the old fella had to endure…(no ‘Bob’ jokes please!) Our irresponsibility nearly killed someone….but that time, we got lucky. Never again, as they say.

Well, what has this got to do with being a studio owner, otherwise known as the Compressor….the one and only saviour? Well, absolutely nothing….but it makes a good after dinner story. Actually, that’s not true…..here’s the link:

January was a rotten month….I had to pump some of my own readies in to tide us over. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has had to do that! However, I think you make a choice in life. I worked for a large company before this, and basically hated it. That might seem odd, but for 20 years I did something that I really wasn’t happy about…..but it paid the rent. When you do something you don’t enjoy….you yearn to be free!

Security is a complicated idea, and one with an immense potential to trap us – money isn’t automatically freedom. You need to look carefully at what you are doing to earn the money before you can conclude that you are, in practice free. This is a cost-benefit analysis we should all perform on our own lives. Don’t listen to what people say about freedom and security and money but, instead, look at the specific, actual bargains they are making with their lives. Kierkegaard (a philisopher) thought that ‘anxiety is freedom’. It is both the price we pay for freedom and the sign of freedom; the entirely secure are not anxious and they are not free either. That sits uncomfortably doesn’t it? On the one hand I have no boss so I can’t be sacked – yes, I have clients but they generally look after themselves – I’m about as free as I’ve ever been! On the other hand, I have no job security or protection of any kind. If the clients don’t call….I have no income.

There is an upside to this lack of security. I don’t think I’m that different to anyone working in a ‘proper job.’ Security is almost impossible to find, and the very luckiest of us is no more than a couple of pieces of bad luck away from destitution.

So take this message from the Compressor….if you make the bargain to accept anxiety as the price of freedom, it helps to be as clear eyed as you can be about what you’re doing. I have yet to meet a producer, an artist or an engineer who isn’t anxious about their future….even those with a full year ahead…they all seem to think that the party is about to end! That is what keeps them going…that is the positive aspect of anxiety.

So…. a call to all freelancers and creative types. Freedom has a price….and although there will be plenty of times you ask yourself if it’s it worth it….like the old fella who got in the way of my car….there are people out there who aren’t as lucky as you!

TTFN

The Compressor