Here’s what happened in my so-called professional life in the last 30 days: A lucrative TV gig fell through, my three weekly club dates expired, and the one online session I booked stiffed me after I spent five labor intensive hours on their crap track. This may sound like complaining, but it is not. These are the standard professional musician/entertainer landmines we inevitably encounter while navigating this career path that has no path.
For most Americans, you are what you do. So when a musician is all rig, no gig, it hits you on a deep level that leaves you waking up at 3 a.m. wondering, who am I? What am I doing with my life? Should I do something else? Where can I get money?
I’m reminded of the 2010 Joan Rivers documentary, A Piece of Work. In one poignant scene, Joan looks at her book (calendar) replete with empty dates and says: “If my book ever looked like this, it would mean that nobody wants me and that everything I ever tried to do in life didn’t work and nobody cared and I've been totally forgotten.”
Joan Rivers is widely regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time. She was a trailblazer for women in comedy, breaking barriers in the 1950s and ’60s when stand-up was male-dominated. She became the first woman to host a late-night network talk show (The Late Show with Joan Rivers, in 1986), won a Daytime Emmy, a Grammy, and was nominated for a Tony. You’d think that after that much success, Joan could calmly coast with plenty of dough and accolades to carry her through. But there she was at age 77, still terrified of not working. She needed the gigs for validation, a lifeline. Maybe that’s what it takes to be a legend.
Musicians and entertainers are like puppies: Give us nothing to do, and we chew on the couch, poo on the floor. For me, music is more than a paycheck. It’s therapy, meditation, medicine, my always-there-for-you friend. Take it away, and the quiet exposes how messy the rest of life can get.
Yet the old truth holds: This too shall pass. Everything shifts—gigs, chops, the economy, even mountains. Grip too hard for permanence, and you suffer. Embrace the flux, and yeah, it’s unnerving at first. But it’s also freeing. Nothing left to clutch so desperately. Let it go.
“For me, music is more than a paycheck. It’s therapy, meditation, medicine, my always-there-for-you friend.”
The Buddha broke it down like this:
- Problem: Life is unsatisfactory—there’s always something off, something we resist.
- Cause: Clinging, craving, attachment (the fearful, greedy kind).
- Cure: Release the grip—suffering fades.
- Treatment: Train mind and heart (the Eightfold Path).
It’s not about snuffing desire—good ambition or kindness is skillful. It’s dropping the obsessive hold that breeds turmoil. Zen teachers point out that pain and our personal likes/dislikes will always be part of life and never fully disappear. The real problem comes when we keep demanding that reality change to match what we want or avoid what we don’t want. When we stop fighting what’s actually happening and simply accept the present moment as it is, we naturally feel more at ease and peaceful.
That’s what clicked during the 2020 quarantine. For the first time as an adult, I wasn’t hunting for work. After decades of muscling doors open, the world slammed them shut—and forced me to sit with no control. It was terrifying, then strangely liberating. I learned to breathe in the pause.
Staying zen is calmly accepting whatever comes. That’s why music hooks me—it drops me into pure activity, mutes the world’s chatter, lets me dissolve into the flow.
A younger me in a dry spell would’ve spiraled like Joan Rivers: catastrophizing nonstop, convinced the apocalypse had arrived. After years of white-knuckling through slumps, I’m finally easing up. I play for the joy of it, try to learn something new, but mostly I lean into whatever the day brings; ride my bike, watch movies, hang with family and friends, take long walks, enjoy quiet mornings with coffee and no agenda.
Everything has its season. To everything, turn, turn, turn. The calendar blanks out, then fills again. The phone goes silent, then rings off the hook. In the quiet between, I remember: My sense of self doesn’t vanish when the gigs do. It just gets room to stretch, to root deeper beyond the spotlight.
The guitar’s still here, patient as ever. It never ghosts me. And right now, that’s plenty.
