Over the last year, or even longer (though less consistently) there have three or so major themes here:

1. Music/Sound
2. Electronic communications (social media, Web 2.0, new media, etc…)
3. Our human potential (self-motivation, self-help, goals, etc…)

These themes have taken many forms, including anecdotes, videos, and posts I’ve found online to quotes, book references, poetry, sound samples and musical references. That’s not going to change, but time has given me the benefit of being able to see what this blog is about; what scales, and what’s sustainable as a writer and leader of this endeavor.

If you imagine this blog as an impressionist painting, say a darker Monet (above) or Renoire, and you blur the specific content items into a single whole, the focus of the writing and the message start to get more narrow. You start to see that really this blog is about me and what I’ve tried to do since I came online with my music in 1999, I write a bit about that at the bottom this post here. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s funny because as I write this I remember what it was that attracted me to the Web. I was a musician/composer, and I was working on a recording. After having played guitar for years, being in bands, playing shows, and trying to sell music at venues, I saw that the Web had the power to change everything for me as a working artist — the playing field had been leveled. On the Web, in 1999, Mp3.com had just launched, and it was skies the limit for artists to get out their, hang a virtual shingle, and let the world know about their work. However, it wasn’t about huckstering your product and bombarding folks with spam to inform them about your work (though there was some of that); rather there was an openness that permeated throughout this new platform. There were new channels for sharing what you were doing, as well as for folks, from all the over the world, to share with you.

The Web was, is, the great liberator. It leveled the playing field for artists of all kinds, but for me as a composer, the benefits have been huge. Here are a few reasons why:

• Getting the message out is cheap (often free)
• Exposure is as great as the work you put into it (and free, not historically the case)
• Everyone in the world (with an internet connection) can access your work.
• You are your own limitation because the world is at your finger tips (or to use bad 90′s copy – just a mouse click away)

These items are unprecedented, and while they have, and will continue to, come with their own struggles, it’s has the potential to be a boon for the working artist, writer, and creative. Therefore, the moral of the, blog/story that I’ve been weaving for the past year  starts to look like this:

If you’re a composer, artist, creative, whatever then there’s no excuse to not get your work out there, do the most and be the most you can be; the Web and the many electronic communications tools available to you (including email, social media and even old school listservs and newsgroups) can help you get the message out there about your work.

That’s it.

That’s the fork in the message for creatives out there.

Being yourself, sometimes, is the hardest thing to be. This is especially the case if you’ve gotten in the habit of denying who you really are and playing the role of somebody else. At least when you’re playing a role or a character and somebody takes issue with you, or doesn’t like you, then they’re taking an issue with a mask, a facade, rather than the you, who *you* really are.  At least, but on the other side of that is that you spend so much time pretending to be someone else, and one day, before you know it, you’ve spent your whole life being this character, this shell of someone else and you find yourself totally out of touch with what you believe and who you really are.

I’ve found this to especially be the case if you’ve been raised in an environment where you’re scared, or insecure, or don’t necessarily know what people want from you. So you take on a role, which isn’t as dissociative as it sounds, and you become someone else. Of course, the real you is always there, but it’s hidden, tucked away a little bit, and when people get close you lash out, or do something that keeps them at bay, or at arm’s length so that nobody can get close and catch a glimpse of you really are. After all if that were to happen then they might get an edge, an angle, or some other kind of perspective or insight into the delicate and gentle person that you really are; which is to be avoided at all costs.

Often, though, over time, the real you, who you really are, that person connected to the source, the child of the universe, comes out. You can’t help it, but on the other hand, you don’t really want to help it because it feels so good to be free, basking in the ray’s of the sun’s light knowing that if only for this second you’re free; free to be who you are and achieve everything that you’ve wanted to but your caricature or character’s insecurity wouldn’t allow for. This is the real you emerging from your universal womb; free to breathe in the air, taking life fully into your lungs.

Like a snake you shed that old skin and begin anew. Sure that sheath protected you and gave you comfort, if only a bit cold, in those dark moments of your life when you coiled up with it, but it allowed you to live, and it allowed you to get here, to this moment, and that’s what the journey, the trip, the experience is all about, growth through introspection and the analysis of who you are and what it means to be you – the expansion of consciousness.

What do you do when you reached some personal best, some thing in your life, where you just don’t have anything else to prove? Underneath prayer, meditation, the will to succeed, and all of these other things that we focus on, underneath that stuff, if you pull back a few layers, you’ll see that all along, really, you just had something to prove. Whether it was to yourself, your family, your dad (a big one for dudes), your high school guidance counselor or whatever, it’s likely that there was somebody, somewhere that you were trying to prove yourself to.

Now, it’s extremely abstract to actually prove something to anybody, and on top of that the proof usually comes in the intangible form of a feeling unless you’re success has garnered a lot of publicity for one reason or another. Assuming that you’re the person who’s looking for proof in the zone of feelings this is a hard one to share. However, what you find after a bit, is that the thing that drove you, that motivator, that will to succeed, that need to prove yourself falls away.

I remember that after the success, monetarily and otherwise, of The Dark Side of the Moon the members of Pink Floyd were kind of disoriented. Now they hadn’t just gotten a number one record, but they’re recording was in the charts for more than twenty years. They had achieved something that nobody before, and quite possibly after, has been able to achieve. As you can imagine it kind of messed with their perception of reality. In many ways “Dark Side”, as fans offhandedly refer to it, marked a turning point for the band. They no longer had anything to prove, whatever it was that drove them, slowed a bit. In time, they found their bearing, and continued to do great work, but the motivation, the impetus, the whole landscape of their perceived reality changed, and subsequently so did they.

So with that story, I also wrap in the moral of my own story here. When you’ve reached a point where you no longer have anything to prove, the ground beneath your feet shakes a little, your reality shifts before your eyes, and the fire that once burned in your gut is now only a smoldering pile of ashes. It doesn’t feel great, and mostly a feeling of disorientation washes across your being. Some medicate with legal and illegal narcotics, sex, material items, etc… but really this change, this loss of “something to prove” is growth. Of course, it’s change, but it’s also change for the better. That monkey of having something to prove is off your back. Now what do you do? Do you do anything?

Most of us who’ve experienced this have spent the better part of our lives trying to prove this thing to ourselves and others. When that urge is gone, it leaves a huge hole. Do we look for something else to fill it with? Do we acknowledge the loss? Can we rest on our laurels? I don’t know.

I know I feel lighter, and more at ease, but the hole where I had something to prove once lived is now an empty cavern at the core of my being that’s constantly grasping and looking for something to fill it with if only to take up some of the emptiness of where my sense of purpose used to live.

Alright, alright, I know I’m opening up myself to huge scrutiny here, but I do want to say a few words about the vision board. I first came across the vision board one dark winter day when the crummy job blues had their hold on me, and I was looking for hope in just about any place I could find it. I found it, this particular time, in a DVD called The Secret that my sister had loaned me. As I watched The Secret and all of its flashy post production new-ageyness I was struck by the idea of the vision board that they presented in this video.

Having nothing to lose, because life was looking pretty bleak, I set about creating my own vision board, but I never did… a few years passed, life got better, and then one day I decided… what the hell, maybe life can get even better with aid of the vision board. So I went to work, cutting out pictures, and printing and copying and pasting evocative images to a poster board. Still slightly embarrassed by the thing, I hid it on the back of a door only I saw when getting dressed for work. The idea was that I would see it every day, and over time the seeds of these things would be planted in my subconscious. No joke, I do believe in the power of that kind of repetition, but the whole thing did seem to be a stretch.

With corners curling, and glue loosing its tackiness over approximately 18 months, the vision board had kind of been abandoned. I still saw it every day, but didn’t think much about it. Honeslty, I just hadn’t taken the time to pull it down and pitch it. Occasionally, something on it would grab my attention, but mostly I let it go, and didn’t think much about it. That is until a few months ago.

On my vision board I had myself visiting Chicago and New York City for business, so I had pictures of Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the like. As well, I wanted to keep developing a spiritual presence, so I had pictures of various things that reminded me of that. I had a pictures of a new car that I wanted, but couldn’t possibly figure out where that would be coming from. I had a lot of pictures of Lake Michigan, and homes on Lake Michigan. I also had lots of photos of what the present father and husband looked like. These were all things that I wanted, all things that I wanted to aspire towards. If I was doing work on these things it was in fits and bursts, and there was no story arc or narrative, but then life isn’t very linear.

One morning I really looked at the vision board. I looked closely, maybe more closely than ever at a picture on the vision board. It was a picture of the sun rising over Manhattan, with the Empire State Building in the foreground. What caught my attention was that I just the week before I had been standing right where that picture must have been taken when I visited and stayed in mid-town Manhattan. I started looking at the other pictures. I realized that not only had I gotten the car in the pictures, but I actually had gotten a better version. I realized that I had spent a ton of time on Lake Michigan, and that I had numerous business trips to Chicago coming up. I thought about my work as a husband and father, and when I thought about that I realized that so much had improved there to. In a moment, I realized that nearly everything I had put on this vision board two years prior had or was about to come true.

Ok, so what’s my point. My point is this, try a vision board. When I first did, I didn’t believe in it. Man, it’s unbelievable. I don’t know why things came together this way, but they did. I didn’t do anything special, I certainly didn’t plan my life around the vision board, I just kind of wrote it down, and threw it away, and let the universe pull it together, if it was supposed to be that way. One of the things that’s so interesting about this for me, and the reason why I’m writing about it now is because the whole experience is underscored by a question that I read last week that pertained to an idea of consciousness and the nature of things: What if the universe didn’t create us, but we created the universe?

If we do create the universe simply by projecting and being participants in a shared reality, then isn’t possible that we truly do have the capability of creating our own reality? Food for thought.

The only we thing we have control of is our attitude. I read this somewhere once, I think it was on a doctor’s wall or something. I can see the image of the framed, gold-plated plaque thing in my mind, but I just can’t remember where I saw it. Anyway, that saying has haunted me over the years. As I’ve been coming up through jobs and life, I’ve always felt like situations and people (usually above me – the Man!) control my life, and the whole ‘control of your attitude’ thing was a load of crap.

One day, though, after having been downsized out of my job, feeling desperate and feeling like things were totally out of control, I decided to flip my attitude, just for fun. Because I had nothing to lose, and as any desperate person can attest, despair can make you a little mental sometimes, so I said what the hell.

At first it was a put on, I was pretending, because I felt like crap, but I swear to God after like an hour, I kid you not, I actually started to feel better. I started to feel hopeful, and then shortly after that I felt motivated to look for a new job, and a short time after that I was certain not only that I’d get a job, but I’d get a job quickly, and it would be even better than the jobs that preceded it. Sure, enough, I did land a better job than my previous jobs, but that exercise has stuck with me.

Often, I feel like I’m prone to being depressed, cantankerous, and cynical with a side of existential angst, but also pretty optimistic about life. Sometimes, though, the woes of life get the best of me, I lose my center, and I need an attitude adjustment. It’s time like this that I remember to flip my attitude, and sure enough, every time I try, I’m able to do that.

My greatest tip for doing this, and there’s nothing that seems to work quite as well, is acknowledging all of the things that you’re grateful for. While it’s easy, and I would say part of the human condition, to see what we don’t have, it’s a bit more difficult and rewarding to acknowledge what we do have. If you get desperate enough, try it, you might just surprise yourself.

I’m thinking a lot about possibility lately. I’m thinking about those things that we can do if we decide just to do it. I’m thinking about what it means to go after something that you want, and what it means to just let it go and not bother. It’s challenging to let things go, especially when you’ve put a lot of work, time and thought into something. At what point do you pack it in, and say you know what maybe this just isn’t meant to be.

I have a friend and for years and years he was an adjunct educator. He tried, and tried. He worked so hard, and one upset after another he stuck it out. I used to say ‘man, pack it in, give up on this… maybe it’s not meant to be.’ and he was human, he was frustrated, but he had vision, and he could see it, or if he couldn’t see it at least he could see what he wasn’t supposed to be doing and so he persevered on his path.

Eventually, he landed in a solid place, a solid job with great experiences, and a ton of opportunities. I was so proud for him and all of the work that he put in. I wished that I had his vision, his perseverance and his will to stick it out because he knew what was right. I didn’t then, but I do now.

This is something that’s so important to the journey. Sure, sometimes the journey is more important than the destination, as was the vision statement of my Alma Mater, Goddard College, but at the same time sometimes you need to get somewhere so you don’t feel like you’re wandering around in the cold. Call it faith, vision, hope, certainty, whatever, you can’t know that you’ve made it until you have, and usually whatever it was that helped you make it, whatever drives you, has you focused on something even further out there when reach that place that you had been trying to get to.

This is where my mind is at as I work on this new recording. I started on my musical path writing songs, and over the years, I’ve written man. However, after I started working on the ambient/space music I started to focus less on the songs, singing and songwriting. For the most part, over the last decade that’s stuck. I haven’t deviated much from the electronic, ambient/space music perspective.

Mostly I haven’t moved from that genre much because I haven’t wanted to disappoint fans, or at the same time start all over again in a new genre. On top of that, as much I’ve sung, performed and spoken in front of people, singing publicly still mortifies me just like it’s the first time, which constantly has me starting and stopping my sort of “ambient folk” projects, because the live singing piece is such a huge component… this was the case with the band Olagra and the recording Olagra.

However, as I’ve moved forward with the poetry, the singing, songwriting, and now this recording of this new project the ambient folk thing is coming back around again. I’m re-recording some of the songs off the Olagra release. I had planned on doing the vocals in a sort of spoken word manor, but the more I listen to them the more I feel it will be necessary to sing, or at least some combination.

It’s early in the recording and creative process, but the new tracks definitely have a Windy and Carl, or Kranky singer/songwriter style to them. Kind of guitar drenched in reverb, and the vocals kind of going the way of spoken word meets Leonard Cohen or Gordon Lightfoot. Again, it’s early in the process, so it can go anywhere from here.

Note to self:
See things through.

It’s easy to walk, and give up what you’ve been working on, especially when it starts to stagnate. It’s easy to rationalize why something sucks, and why you shouldn’t continue. It’s easy to just be done with and move on because you dread it, and  it’s really a drag.

These were the things I was thinking, then I had this crazy simple idea to see things through.

See things through to their natural and organic conclusion. Like the Tao Te Ching says ‘when you intervene, you pick a fruit that was almost ripe’. Let stuff come to it’s own head. It’s easy to get up in there and mess with the junk and try to end it, but it’s more rewarding to just wait and let things take their time, and let things come to their own conclusion. That’s not to say that it doesn’t suck to wait, but it’s even possible that if you just see things through and try to find a positive attitude, that things might just flip themselves totally around, and that which looked like it was taking a crap and going south is actually better than ever. I’m just saying, it couldn’t hurt, if the thing is destined to end, then why rush it, let it happen on its own without struggle and resistance. It can’t hurt to just give it a try.

So you have your idea. Everybody will tell you it’s a bad idea. It will surprise you where the honesty and candor will come from. You’ll feel like the loneliest bastard in the universe. As Hugh McCleod says “good ideas have lonely childhoods” Ain’t that the fact! So be Ok with it. Make friends with the loneliness of it, but listen to what your critics have to say.

Of course, some folks will be trying to be hurtful, because they’ll be jealous of your passion or your certainty. That goes with the territory. Others, though, will really care and be concerned about your idea. If you’re successful it could adversely affect their position in your life, or your position in theirs. There’s nothing you can do about that. The idea will reconcile most everything.

While the universe won’t be greatly affected by your ideas (though it could and that’s something for another post) people’s personal universes could be greatly affected by your success, and the prospect of this scares the crap out of people.

Hear people out, get their perspective and where they’re coming from. Don’t indulge them by arguing, or trying to get them to see your point of view; that’s pointless. There’s a feeling that comes with a good idea, and the realization that you’re doing the right thing. It’s a warm feeling, and no matter what dark days you may face, or the trusted relationship that may dissolve because of it, remember that feeling, and hold fast to your idea. But hear your critics out.

For today
be thankful.
For this
moment
be thankful.
Do it as long
as you can,
it’s tough
but worth it
just try to
hold onto it for
as long as you
can.

Start with this breath.
Go ahead,

be thankful.

Truly, no man is an island, but some times the best thing that you can do is as much as you can by yourself. Of course, the sacrifice is that you’re not going to grow as much as you’d like as quickly as you’d like, and you’re doing it alone. However, I would say that sometimes that’s a fair trade off because growth comes with its own sacrifice.

As you grow you’re forced to add more people, more productive ways of doing things, and managing all the perspectives that those new additions bring. Of course, thinking about doing something small-scale only is contrary to the American way, but often times, bigger isn’t better, it’s just more complex and cumbersome.

What’s the happy medium? I would say that the happy medium is doing as much as you can by yourself, and then bringing people in on an as-needed basis, preferably short-term if that can be arranged. This is something that I’ve had to learn the hard way, through experience, both in my corporate work and my creative work.

A quick example: Let’s say you’re the leader of a band, and the group gigs very actively with most of the group making their living from music. One day you have to take a leave for some kind of surgery, that’s going to leave you recovering for awhile unable to go on stage or do lengthy van rides in the back of a Ford Econoline. Your band will feel that it’s your responsibility to get them paying work or to pay them something to maintain their open schedule while you’re out of commission. Sadly, you have to make a choice, cut them loose and try to regroup once you come back to things or pay them something to keep their schedules open, or even try to use your connections to find them work. I’ve done both, but fortunately, I’ve always had small groups.

And I’ve always had a small groups precisely because of this conundrum. You want to have loyal players, and employees, but loyalty is a two-way street.

So again, no man is an island, but the more you can do by yourself the more successful you’ll be simply because you’ll be able to focus more on the work and less on the management of the thing that started with your idea.