The most abominably unfair difference between the life of a musician and the normal (non-musician) is that for the rest of our lives, we will never have a vacation longer than two weeks. And for some fucked up strange reason, that doesn't really matter to us, usually because we fill ourselves with contorted self-justifications that more-or-less boil down to something relating to 'emotional enjoyment' or some other bullshit.

But yes, it's true. Musicians a) never retire. We work until the day we die; teaching, playing, etc. b) can't bear the thought of more than two weeks from our instruments.Even if we deny it.

A lot of you musicians are sitting there going "not really. Just last month I went a whole two weeks without practicing." Probably. But did not you just not play? More than likely you read through some chamber music with friends, fiddled around with some scales and then got bored, attended some brainless mandatory orchestra rehearsal, whored yourself to some useless gig that gave you rent money, taught some ineptly retarded secondary-student, or participated in some form of the like.

Seriously try and remember the last time you went a full 14 days without touching your instrument completely. You were probably 15 years old, maybe younger. And if you have gone 14 days in the recent past, you probably have some wild story you brag about to your friends about how you once went that long without doing it and then you came back, and your hands felt like jello. "It was great, such a relief" you tell your friends. But you're not really fooling anybody. Deep down inside, you felt like shit and you thought your technique was going to hell. .....then again, you could just be a brass player.

But face the facts. We musicians will never have a vacation. It's not possible. The rest of our lives are chained to our instruments, whether you like it or not.

"When I go one day without practicing, I know. When I go two days, my teacher knows. When I go three days, the audience knows."

-Arthur Rubenstein