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Today's installment in this series on people who spend much time alone tells the composite story of a man whose trauma drove him into seclusion and a risky career change.
Eli majored in his love, music composition but also took psychology and business courses because he was urged to have a practical backup.
He played oboe in the college orchestra and became more optimistic about his musical future when one of his compositions was selected to be performed by that orchestra. He was additionally buoyed by having become first oboist in the community orchestra, which included many members old enough to be his parent.
It was there that he met and fell in love with Deborah, a violinist. Six months later, after he graduated, they married.
Her day job was in hospital administration and was scared of having a baby. She had heard horror stories and read enough statistics to know that fear of hospitals is understandable.1 Nevertheless, ten months later, she was pregnant.
Knowing he'd soon have to bear the financial responsibilities of fatherhood, Eli decided to be practical and back-burner his dream of a music career and instead find a way to make a living that combined his psychology and business courses.
He discovered that nearly all counseling jobs required certifications, which meant at least a master's degree plus 3,000 supervised hours. With Deborah wanting to take at least six months maternity leave and knowing that many women take-off longer or at least go part-time, he needed to make money now, not spend it on school, even if, long-term, a graduate degree might have been a worthwhile investment.
So Eli decided to try his hand at financial recovery coaching: helping spendaholics to realize that their emotional hole is unlikely to stay filled by buying "stuff." That practice's core belief is that, like other addictions, trying to buy your way to contentment is likely to result in a hedonic treadmill, spending more and more to get that temporary shopper's high that fades ever more quickly.
Because Deborah had a rich network of friends, she helped him launch a practice that quickly generated decent income.
Alas, when Deborah went into labor a month premature, her fear of hospitals was vindicated. The nurse put epidural painkiller in her intravenous line instead of the intended penicillin for treating a labor-caused infection. The epidural drug caused cardiac arrest and Deborah and the baby died.
Eli was beyond bereft and not only cancelled all his clients but refused to see anyone for two months. During that time, he mainly stayed in his apartment and took long walks. Seeing life's transience, he decided to take a more focused stab at his dream career: music composer for films.
Knowing that was a risky goal, Eli moved to a cheaper apartment and otherwise cut his expenses. He worked six hours a day for two months to create a demo mp3 of his compositions and sent it to 20 major Hollywood film producers. He received 18 no-responses and two polite rejections, both saying that his compositions weren't good enough to yield professional employment. One of them was kind enough to say "not good enough yet."
Eli deliberated whether to return to financial recovery coaching, to spend on a master's degree in music composition, or try to gain the skills on his own full- or part-time while coaching.
He decided to circle a date on his calendar nine months from that day and promised himself that he would "kill myself between now and then" to get as good as possible at composing. Living in virtual solitude, he spent most of his waking hours reading articles and books on composition, listening to Oscar-winning film scores and making notes, and incorporating everything he was learning into his own compositions.
When he feels good enough about a composition, he plans to send it to a dozen successful film composers, asking for honest feedback. It remains to be seen whether his self-imposed solitude pays off.
1Every year, an estimated 400,000 people die in hospitals caused by medical errors, plus many people who suffer unnecessarily painful or lengthy recovery.
