Indecisive and afraid of failure

In the making of Strawberry fields forever John Lennon requested that they make a few options for the background music.

One version had trumpets and cellos and the other was a psychedelic eastern sound.

But the project had come to a halt as it was now time for John to decide which one he wanted.

Trumpets and cellos or psychedelic?

And John balked.

He couldn’t pick and he walked away.

Eventually it fell to George Martin to figure it out and in a cool bit of problem solving he blended the two versions to give us the song we know and love today.

In 2009 Steven Spielberg bought the rights to make a Martin Luther King Jr movie.

That was almost 14 years ago now and yet no progress has been made.

No script drawn up. No actors lined up.

Nothing.

And you might say – well maybe he’s retired from filmmaking?

But he hasn’t, he’s made lots of movies since 2009.

He’s made Lincoln, Ready Player One, Bridge of Spies, and West Side Story to name a few.

So he’s still making movies and he clearly intended to make a movie about MLK Jr otherwise he wouldn’t have bought the rights but maybe a little fear of failure crept in.

Maybe he’s worried about the scrutiny a Steven Spielberg Martin Luther King Jr movie would attract and so he needs it to be good and can’t bring himself to get the shitty first draft done.

Dr. Dre spent 11 years working on the album Detox only to shelve it.

Can you imagine spending 11 years of your life working on an album only to never show it to the public?

What I think happened is the very real possibility of his audience not liking it sewed a seed of doubt into Dr. Dre’s mind and eventually that doubt became fear and it became so overwhelming that it was better not to publish rather than confirm his suspicions.

Now, the reason I string these examples together is that I realise the reader of this blog might have an internal critic that is scolding them for not being more godlike.

So, to level the playing field I thought I would point out that the ‘gods’ are human and just as capable as you of having weak moments.

Hope that helps!