Here's to the losers - Bless them all!

I almost titled this post "bless us all," but I borrowed the 'toast' above from a Frank Sinatra song I remember hearing. Since I remember nothing but that line, I've no idea to which losers he was referring - perhaps the song had a different flavour if he was performing somewhere such as Las Vegas.

Losers come in many varieties. My post today is dedicated to my own set - the losers who began as talented, even gifted, souls, and who spent years of education, training, and effort at developing the talents.... only to see, looking back decades later, that we not only accomplished nothing in any field that we loved, but that the few steps of which we were proud in our young adult years were so small that we'd be embarrassed to speak of them today. The efforts we made were fine for 'starting out' - provided they had led anywhere.

The blessing and curse of the educated loser is knowing (1) that one has forgotten more than one knows, and (2) that one is a nobody. I'm not sure whether the 'inflated' losers, of whom I'll speak in a moment, are better or worse off than are we. I've read too many great texts, seen too many concerts, and so forth, to have any illusions that I could impress anyone on the planet. The inflated probably have an easier time. Their only trait which I find exasperating is that they tend to assume others know even less than they do - and to have a 'let me teach you' attitude.

I can think of someone I used to know who mentioned constantly that she was 'an interior decorator' - though the only house she'd decorated was her own. (She criticised the 'bad taste' of everyone else on the planet in the process.) I knew yet another, who'd appeared in a single, local stage production (and was outstanding, I must say), who worked with me, and never worked in fewer than 5 references to that play daily. I am sure those two examples suffice.

Sometimes, though not usually, the inflated can be dangerous. I knew a woman once who had wanted to become a psychiatrist, but never achieved this goal. Her work was as a counsellor (not a psychologist - one who counsels students about course work and career planning), and she meddled in ways that could have destroyed them - phoning parents because she thought (often incorrectly) that someone had mental illness or drug problems, recommending commitment to mental hospitals, and the like.

I suppose, were I less realistic, that I could speak of myself as a writer and theologian - after all, I have an Internet site and a blog...

I naturally could speak here of the value we have in being created in the divine image, and I'd mean every word. But religious people too often fall into clichés, so I raise the toast in the heading to all the other losers in my own category.

• To everyone with an advanced degree who was told that she could probably get a good-paying job if she only increased her typing speed, or who was asked, "You don't type? What could you do, be a waitress?"
• To musicians who visit, for example, a strange church, and are asked if they ever considered joining a choir.
• To those who are out of their minds with the horrid jobs they've taken to survive, and who can't share this with their closest friends because their friends think that for someone who won all the awards to be reduced to this is hilarious.
• Fill in the blanks with your own experience
  
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Why am I so irritable today? The silliest things do set me off. Remember the early days of the Internet? Any page one designed, let alone graphic one produced or MIDI file one sequenced, which looked wonderful in 1998 looks rather dreadful now - technology has changed enormously. Always, there was a problem of how different files sounded or appeared on other computers. I've noticed that some of my MIDI collection (not necessarily those I myself sequenced), which sounded delightful (for computer music, that is) once upon a time, sound like tin cans crashing now. I shall never cease to be amazed at how the same file can sound incredibly different not only on various computers, but that those which sounded great with (defunct) Crescendo can sound like cats wailing with Real or Media Player. For years now, I have contributed MIDI files and ring tones to an on-line site. (Ah, the graveyards to which once promising musicians are laid to rest...) The site owner had liked my contributing sentimental, popular Catholic hymns - the kind which one remembers from first communion or the Tuesday night novena. I sequenced quite a few (not because I thought them to be great compositions... and even one with my dreadful coordination, which makes my skills at the keyboard so bad that I'm convinced I passed my piano proficiency test the first time just so the judges wouldn't have to hear me play again, can manage to pound out better than "Little White Guest.") Some of them, especially those from ten years ago or more, sound dreadful today - but, considering this music never was anything but dreadful, I was glad that someone was enjoying them. Well, today I heard from someone who probably is just as big a loser as I was - who else performs in most Catholic churches? He'd used one of my MIDI files ("Jesus, Jesus Come to Me" - not exactly a song I'd like anyone to know I even knew, let alone one sequenced...), and informed me of how he'd corrected the melody, converted my dreadful string arrangement to grand piano, put in feeling. If he could do that with not only such a horrid song but within the limitations of computer music, he must be quite extraordinary indeed. But it took me almost an hour to laugh!

How does it happen that, the older one gets, the more childish someone realises she is being... and does it anyway? How did I compromise my dignity in even reacting to such silliness - and why would I be insulted because I'm a failure as a musician who knows this is so (though for lack of opportunity, not initial talent), where others take pride in being organists of such merit (which is about two steps below that of a fledgling busker) ?

Educated losers of this world, you are not alone, small comfort though that may be. And I promise to never, ever say that your being a loser is "God's will."