Yesterday, while venturing out into the world to grab food between rehearsals, my roommate J, L (a harpsichordist), T (a Baroque violinist), and I got to talking about other professions we'd like to dabble in (gardening, massage therapy) and eventually posed ourselves the question: if you had to choose a career unrelated to music, what would it be?
L admitted to a deep passion for horticulture and a dream of being a landscape architect. T considered a life as a photographer. J surprised me saying that she'd enjoy a career in advertising and marketing. At the time, I claimed I'd probably go into something science-related. But thinking harder about it, that really isn't the right answer. Science was my back-up plan in case music didn't work out, another discipline I enjoy and am good at. But this is the hypothetical world we're talking about, a place where I can choose a career based on what I like unbound by such silly things as talent or practicality.
I think I would enjoy being involved in theater or film. No, I don't dream of being a movie star (although, who doesn't occasionally?). I might direct, or make costumes or sets, reinterpret great works, write new ones. Perhaps this latent desire to write is a forgotten gift from my parents. Because one cannot want to do what one's parents do, I never considered writing a possibility, never thought my love of words and books ran deeper than a childhood immersed in them. Maybe I could be a restorer of old books, a reader of dead languages. In the hypothetical it's never too late.
Alternatively, I think I'd run a diner or a B&B, or maybe a bakery. I often joke about this, but I really love the slow pace of small town life, the people stopping in to chat and have coffee and a muffin, the familiarity of everyone in the community, the small scale, the allowance for whimsy. Maybe I'd have a vegetable garden out back I'd use as ingredients, maybe I'd use my space to host concerts and poetry readings, square dances and weddings. Or just invent new recipes that people would enjoy.
In the end, I am a people-person. I like to work with them, provide for them, teach them, learn from them. If I have people with whom to ponder silly things, debate serious things, create things both great and small, I will be happy.
If you had to pick a career unrelated to the one you're currently in or aiming for, what would you do?
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5 comments:
Some days I would like to be a nun. And some days I would like to be a spy. Perhaps I could be one of those fighting Shaolin nuns--high Anglo-Shaolin, of course. :)
Re: running a B&B, I never thought you were joking.
Re: not doing what your parents do/did, I beg your pardon!
Re: begging your pardon, you didn't intend to play early music, you managed to avoid it all the way until college!
I don't know... I never thought I would enjoy doing anything but theater, and now I really love my job as a travel and special events coordinator / all-around office thing.
I guess if I could be anything else I would be one of a couple of things - either a jazz chanteuse (don't have the legs or the lungs for this one, I fear), a vegetarian chef (cooking meat scares me), or - perhaps my most ardent secret desire - a writer and photographer for a far-flung adventurous publication like NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC...
Or also a college professor (duh.) I mean, if Socrates was killed for corrupting the youth, isn't it great to think you can get paid for it?
A.
I think I would like to work with animals in some way. Or activism of some sort. Not much money to be had there.
Or, number two, I would like to be a painter (I tried it and decided it was too much with music).
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