What this musician’s identity crisis teaches us about navigating change

TED Radio Hour

Cellist Joshua Roman shares his journey through an identity crisis triggered by long COVID, which forced him to reevaluate his lifelong dedi

Key takeaways

• Identity can become deeply tied to a single pursuit, making it difficult to adapt when that pursuit is disrupted.

Main topics

• Identity and self-worth tied to professional identity
• Impact of long COVID on physical and mental health

Notable quotes

I was using the cello as a tool, trying to extract all the good that I could from it in a way that would make an impact for other people. But I wasn't really considering what does this sound, what does this practice mean for me?

Conclusion

Joshua Roman's story illustrates how crisis can become a catalyst for profound personal and

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) This week on Consider This, the researcher who just resigned from Anthropic, why he believes AI is a threat to humanity. Speaker 2 (0:08) Very soon, these things are going to be so capable that if they decide to go rogue, it's not going to be good. Speaker 4 (0:14) Plus, his view of what guardrails could look like. This week on Consider This from NPR. Speaker 6 (0:23) This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks. Our job now is to dream big. Delivered at TED conferences. To bring about the future we want to see. Around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you. You Speaker 4 (0:43) just don't know what you're going to find. Speaker 6 (0:45) Challenge you. We Speaker 4 (0:46) truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy? And even change you. I literally feel like I'm Speaker 6 (0:50) a Speaker 4 (0:50) different person. Yes. Speaker 6 (0:52) Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading. From TED and NPR, I'm Manoush Zomorodi. Were you one of those lucky people who knew exactly what you wanted to be when you grew up? Cellist Joshua Roman was. Speaker 3 (1:20) You know, I went through a phase when I was 10 or so, a few of these kinds of things. I was like, oh, I could be a fighter pilot or a firefighter or it was always something heroic. The fastest man in the world. But only if I break my arm and can never play the cello again. Speaker 6 (1:37) Oh, wow. Speaker 3 (1:37) Then I'll join ski patrol. It was that sort of thing. Speaker 6 (1:42) He has always spent most of his days practicing his cello. Speaker 3 (1:47) It's pretty all-consuming. It's a practice, not just practicing the cello, but the practice of sitting with a friend and working on something together. All of the things that I think other people might explore and really get into, I would do that, but it was always kind of on the side. I never put more effort into anything than I did into the cello. Speaker 6 (2:20) Was it love at first sight or was it more of a slow burn? Speaker 3 (2:25) You know, I don't remember my first time playing the cello. I was three years old. But I do remember the UPS lady at the front door. And we had one of those glass doors and a wooden door. And the wooden door was open. And she was standing there in her brown shorts with this box that was bigger than me. And I was so excited. And yeah, I don't remember ever not loving the cello. So it's been inseparable since memory began. Speaker 6 (3:06) Growing up in Oklahoma City, music and faith were two sides of the same coin and what his family stood for. By the age of 13, Joshua practiced cello five hours a day, often at church alongside his father. Speaker 3 (3:24) When I was growing up, it was very religious. We went to church all the time. My dad was the music director. He's Reverend Paul David Roman. We were at church almost every day of the week, my whole life. And music was a service to God. That's how I saw it. Speaker 6 (3:48) Eventually, Joshua went on to study music. He joined the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. This is him on cello playing Shostakovich. Speaker 6 (3:59) At 22, he was their principal cellist, their youngest ever. At 24, he left to pursue a solo career, playing with orchestras around the world, live streaming on YouTube from Carnegie Hall in 2009, introduced by Yo-Yo Ma. Speaker 4 (4:16) Occasionally, I get to meet an extraordinary young musician, such is the case with Joshua Roman. Speaker 6 (4:23) Tens of thousands of fans online, traveling the globe. Life with his cello was exactly what Joshua had hoped for ever since he was a little kid. Speaker 3 (4:34) By the time I was six or so, I was telling everyone, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And I just knew it. It wasn't a question. It wasn't a consideration. It was just, that was what I was going to do. No question. Speaker 6 (4:52) I think a lot of people, or I won't speak for a lot of people, I'll speak for myself, which is that I'm envious that you had that clarity at such a young age. Speaker 3 (5:04) You know, you can imagine that's something that I get told a lot or asked about quite a bit. And I think it cuts both ways. For me, it's been great. It's been great, but it's also been... Something my whole life has revolved around and my time has always been limited. Because of your commitment. Because of my commitment. Speaker 6 (5:30) That commitment to his craft gave Joshua Roman the focus to become a world-famous classical musician. But like millions of other people, in 2020, his life shifted when the pandemic happened. Not only because he couldn't tour or play concerts, but because after Joshua got COVID, his body completely changed. His health, which he had always taken for granted, became fragile. And his old friend, the cello, it was like they hardly knew each other anymore. Today on the show, an hour with cellist and TED speaker Joshua Roman. An identity crisis that nearly ended his passion for his cello, and how he had to rethink his approach to life and music so he could love both. Speaker 6 (6:20) But first, let's go back to a typical day for Joshua in 2018, before all that happened. Speaker 3 (6:27) A typical day pre-COVID was packed. It was all super intense. So I used to practice. Anywhere from six to 10 hours a day, I was always reaching, striving to make myself better, whether at the cello or some skill or more reflective learning meditation. But it was all 100 miles per hour. My idea of relaxing was to sign up for a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation course. And you're really grounded, but I wouldn't call it relaxing in the sense of not doing anything. And that's what I would do to take a break. And I would get up early. I would run. I got my mile under six minutes again the year before the pandemic. While I was bouncing around, I had been so busy, gone about 80 % of the time playing concerts that I decided I didn't want to bother living in New York anymore. And so in 2019, I left everything in storage. And I just, for the first six months, I just lived in hotels and host family homes while I played the concerts that I had and occasionally needed to add an extra night or crash at my sister's. So I'd spent a long time kind of just roaming, being a kind of nomad. And it had been, I think, eight or nine months of doing that when the pandemic hit. Speaker 6 (8:09) Hi, everyone. What a day. What a time. Speaker 4 (8:13) All the concerts were Speaker 3 (8:14) canceled that March 12th or whatever it was. Speaker 4 (8:18) Concerts that have been canceled between now and May. It's for the best. Got a Speaker 3 (8:22) phone call from my manager that wiped out the entire future income that I had except for, I think, one concert. And I immediately went into a kind of... musical response mode. Welcome Speaker 4 (8:38) to Cello Bello. And Speaker 3 (8:40) started doing daily live streams on Facebook. I was doing this project called The Musical Journal. And I would record these multi-track cello things. Speaker 3 (8:53) When I would get somewhere and unpack, the first thing I would do is set up my recording equipment, my little mobile studio, and record an entry into the musical journal. And that was what music was doing for me at that point. It was an outlet to serve. Speaker 3 (9:16) Looking back, I think that I was really ignoring my personal relationship with the cello. I think I was using the cello as a tool, trying to extract all the good that I could from it in a way that would make an impact for other people. But I wasn't really considering what does this sound, what does this practice mean for me? I was on a mission and Speaker 4 (9:43) that Speaker 3 (9:43) was it. Speaker 6 (9:51) And then we get to January 2021. That's Speaker 3 (9:54) right. Speaker 6 (9:55) And like the vast majority of us, you got COVID. Speaker 3 (10:00) Yeah. Where Speaker 6 (10:02) were you? Speaker 3 (10:03) I was in Jacksonville, Florida, the one concert that wasn't canceled. And I just, I will always say for the record, the Jacksonville Symphony did a great job with their safety protocol and measures. No one else got COVID. They canceled the second concert. We played the first concert and I woke up the next morning and I couldn't smell. Couldn't smell the Altoids. Speaker 4 (10:29) Oh, man. Speaker 3 (10:30) Stuck my nose in the box and I couldn't smell a thing. I was like, this is not good. Yeah. So I took the test. And then, you know, in those days you would cancel the whole concert. And I was just kind of stuck. And I had no idea what it was going to do to me. But from the very beginning, it was an ordeal. Speaker 6 (10:48) Yeah, because like it's really hard to remember, which is so weird because it's not that long ago. But I think, you know, it's not fun to think about. But let's just remind ourselves that for some people it was no big deal to get COVID. And for others it was an extremely big deal. How did your symptoms progress? And at what point did you realize like, oh, nuts, this is not good? Speaker 3 (11:11) Yeah, it was weird because I didn't. feel like I had such a bad COVID. I mean, it was strange. What I didn't have