So I played a gig last night, and it was wonderful in more ways than one. I felt the music, I mean truly felt it in my body as I performed. The sound system was just right, with that splendid balance of warm and bright tones. The audience was attentive and they just about packed the house. And after my set, I had a lovely time getting to know some of the attendees and the other musicians. All in all, it was a good outing, but perhaps pertinent to this post, the most striking event of the night was a chance encounter and conversation I had with a man who I met by the bar as I walked off the stage after my set.
The conversation started out the usual way. He said some nice things and paid compliments to my music and my performance. I smiled, nodded and expressed appreciation for the kind words. And then he said something that stopped me in my tracks, something so simple and obvious, and yet so profound at the same time…
“You should keep singing those songs, you should keep being positive, we need more of it.”
What the man was alluding to was the part of my set where I talked about how we’re inundated with news of doom and gloom all day every day, which makes it all too easy to think all hope is lost, and for this reason, I sometimes feel guilty about writing and performing uplifting music. My new friend at the bar went on to say I don’t need to apologise for positivity. There’s enough negativity in the world, and the actors who perpetrate and spread this negativity don’t apologise for it, so why should we apologise for positivity?
This got me thinking about the subject of hope and positivity, and how uncommon it can be in some circles. Sure, it may seem silly, frivolous, perhaps even blatantly wrong to bury one’s head in the sand and act like nothing’s wrong when the world’s burning around us. It feels like a losing strategy to pretend that all is well when it certainly isn’t. It seems cruel to face someone who’s going through a tough time and say, “chin up, it’s not so bad.”
However, I’ve come to realise that we may feel this way because we’ve created a false dichotomy when it comes to hope. We think it has to be one or the other, we either have to stew in negativity or proclaim positivity, with no middle ground. My conversation with the fellow last night made me realise we can acknowledge that things aren’t right with the world, and still hope for a better future. In this vein, we can be positive about life, politics, the environment and the full gamut of matters that concern us, not in spite of all the negativity in the world, but because of it.
I see now, and I’ve never been more sure, that hope is why my art exists. Hope is what I bring to this world. I used to be self-conscious about how much of my music is often considered, happy, uplifting or even cheesy, and I used to go out of my way to self-censor some of this positivity, but no more. Now's as good a time as any to bring good vibes to those around us. If there ever was a time when hope was sorely needed in our lives, I’d argue that time is now.
So this is me making a conscious effort to be less apologetic about my positivity, to continue to infuse my art, music and writing with hope, and to spread this message from every stage I find myself on and every platform bestowed on me. Because we need more hope. Hope gives us a reason to keep going.
And while it’s important to acknowledge shortcomings and seek to address them, we need to make a conscious effort to counter our innate negativity bias with more positivity, because without positivity, there’s no hope, and without hope, what else is there? Hope keeps us striving for a better future, a better world, and a better life. This, I argue, is the case for hope.
P.S.: My debut non-fiction book, Art Is The Way, and my middle-grade novella, A Hollade Christmas, are out everywhere now. You can get them in all good bookstores and from all major online vendors.