Music was never a choice for me

About 80% of my friends are either musicians or artists. Painters, photographers, guitarists, drummers, piano players, bassists, singers, engineers, graffiti artists, and so on. Most of them are “true” artists. What I mean by that is that they don’t really have a choice of doing anything else. They may be good at other things, but their art is life to them. Then there are the people who do it for fun. I have worked at a lot of guitar/music stores. It doesn’t take long to tell the difference. We can smell our own. I sometimes wish I could be one of the people who do it for fun. They can spend hours everyday learning different scales on their guitar. They can carefully plan what colors and paintbrushes they will use to paint with. They can feel like rock stars being in a cover band. I have never thought of music as fun. I really wish I could. When I was 17, there was an A&R guy who was really interested in signing me to the label he worked for. One day, I went to his apartment in NYC to play for him. I played a few songs. I noticed that his eyes were closed the whole time. I asked why. He told me something that I could not believe at the time. He said that someday, every piece of music I would listen to would be through the ear of a critic. Maybe not a critic, but someone who knows the difference between good and bad music. He said that someday it would be hard for me to listen to music that I would soon know was by people who played for fun. He had his eyes closed the whole time because I was like fresh air to him. My music was pure and true. Only a few years later I realized that he was dead on correct.