“Africa” performed by Mike Massé and Jeff Hall on 7/17/10 at the Pie Pizzeria in South Jordan, Utah.

I found this via Buzzfeed. (Apparently Buzzfeed is my new best friend... Funny how you know about a site but then disregard it for a long time because other things seem more important. Now, during some more laid-back summer months, I have remembered: it is awesome.)

These guys are pretty amazing. Obviously. And they're playing in a pizza parlor. I don't know a thing about either, but I do wonder why it is that they're incredibly talented and not doing something more profound with their talent. There are plenty of possibilities. Day jobs. Familial responsibilities. Other things that happened in life first, and this dream of making a life of a bigger talent had to be forsaken. Maybe there wasn't faith that the talent was big enough. Maybe there were a few stabs made at becoming established and they were given a lukewarm reception. Dunno.

I occasionally receive "quote of the day" messages through email. They're pretty random. I think the person responsible really just stumbles across anything at all, highlights it as a copy and then pastes it in something sent my way. Today's was "life is pain and the slow erosion of everything you've grown used to loving by the steady stream of time".

I feel like this is a quote I am a little too comfortable with most of the time. I just accept that the things I've loved and lost, those people or dreams I had and watched die, are just gone. I tend to think that opportunities have passed, and lament that I didn't make a bigger effort to enjoy life when it was an appropriate time to do so. I'm at a place where I do not want to do that anymore. It's been one hell of a rough year. This spring in particular was simply endured rather than really lived.

I don't know Mike Masse's story, and since he has a website, I could probably find it out pretty readily. I don't know about Jeff Hill, either. At this point, I kind of like it that way. I like just imagining their situation, and looking at it with the eyes of someone who wants to be inspired by the back-story I've invented for them. I like them serving as inspiration for making inroads towards something I genuinely love regardless of all the things I've done before because I thought it was right, or expected, or easy.