Everything is temporary.

This is a thought that first crossed my mind years and  years ago, but it’s only something that I’ve begun to truly internalize and realize in the last few years. Surely, it’s part of the human growth process, but it’s kind of a frightening concept and one that many of us spend large portions of our life fighting. Whether we’re buying ant-aging creams or constantly excercising try to stay young and youthful.

We get old, our bodies break down, we’ll turn into dust and go to from where we came. Part of the realization is that this is Ok. There’s nothing to fight. There’s nothing to do battle with and there’s nothing to resist. Trying to fight the impermanenece of life is a loser’s game, but realizing this enough to not continue to fight it is something, too.

Sitting this morning, listening to the spring birdsong, and drinking a cup of coffee I felt good, and then I felt that this moment was over, never again to exist – somehow, that felt natural, that felt Ok.

It really could be, but we’ll never know unless we try.

It’s too easy to play it safe. It’s too easy to go with the flow and maintain the status quo. That sucks. It’s boring. What fun is predictable living? Not much really, but unfortunately, the human animal is a creature of habit and too often we’re stuck in the routine, the grind, the minutiae of daily living.

Whatever the reason is, be it fear of failure, fear of success, the unknown, it’s so easy to get caught up in the nets of routine, and then rather than trying to break free just settle in to the mundane details of daily living. At some point in our lives all of us are faced with this reality, and it makes me think of the Charles Bukowski book title What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire. You can’t be alive and avoid the flames of failure, or maybe you can, but man, what a boring and unlived life that would be. Dead man walking.

I say get out there, and fail at lots of stuff, eventually you’ll learn what you’re good at. The magic, the absolutely golden moment, though, is finding that place where your success, and what you’re good at intersect. It’s there my friend, right there, that you’ll find your life’s work.

It’s human nature to see what other folks are doing and wish for their success or wish our own lives were more like theirs. Our lives have no precedent, that’s what Joseph Campbell used to say. You are who you are, the story of your life is yours and yours alone to create as you go. Sure, you’ll probably still look at folks and envy them or wish you were doing some really cool stuff like they are, but they had to work to get there, and if what they have is something you want then you’ll have to work to get there, too.

It’s also true that some folks make work look so very easy, and I would submit that when you align your work with your life purpose then things definitely come together with greater ease, organically, rather than having to force or manipulate things to get what you want. As well, nothing that you force or manipulate will last so that’s the loser’s game. Let whatever you want to build unfold slowly, take your time with it. There will be times when there’s anxiety, and you have to rush, but when you’re initially trying to go after that goal, that thing you want, plot the course. Often, the course is just an intellectual exercise where you can see the bird’s eye view of what you hope for; this will make you feel better. But the universe makes the rules, and can both increase and decrease the rate at which our plan unfolds. We don’t have control over much, but the plan helps the self feel like it’s running the show.

Stay focused on the end goal, but enjoy the work, the ride, the process, because all we have is now. If you’re not enjoying the now, the actual work of getting to that end goal then you’ll lose interest and after a while abandon the goal. This is the hardest part to starting anything, but also the most important part. The goal becomes ancillary or just an extra bonus to the work.

Don’t set goals around work you don’t enjoy (really enjoy, can’t wait to do it kind of enjoyment!) otherwise you’ll give up the next time you see something that somebody has and you want. Also, take your time; life is short, but time is relative, there’s good time and bad time. If you’re immersed in something that you love doing that’s good time, and it will fly by, even while you’re “taking your time” with the endeavor.

Today’s title is taken from an excellent CopyBlogger.com post here by Jonathan Mead. Ever the sucker for tirades and tangents on inspiration, passion, trust and building relationships, this is an especially Taoist lesson. The idea (ironically enough) is to not over think, or over plan, but rather to let the thing unfold, and the natural passion and inspiration for what you are doing will propel it. More importantly, you’ll be so interested in what you’re doing that you won’t be focused on being propelled, but rather the joy in doing what you’re doing.

I especially loved this quote:
“If we care about the same things, you’ll probably listen to what I have to say. A relationship is formed. You open up the channels of trust and permission.”

Sitting listening to Rapoon this morning I started to contemplate sound, and compositional intention. In my mind’s ear I recalled many of my experiences and experiments. I thought about the various live presentations of ambient music, recordings, collaborations, and the variety of things that I’ve done in the last decade. I’ve come back to my past work more and more lately, as I’ve been pooling ambient music and acoustic ecology writings that are available online with the intention of posting them in a repository here at mattborghi.com. In going over these writings I’ve come across Brian Eno’s original liner notes to Discreet Music, and what many believe to be the conceptual beginnings of ambient music many, many times (Read them here). I’ve also been refreshing my understanding of R.Murray Schafer, and the acoustic ecology movement that evolved out of his 1977 book – The Tuning of the World.

In reviewing these two perspectives of ambient music (whether self-described or not) I’ve come to more closely understand my own intentions. Years ago after first learning about Eno’s sonic wallpaper, and Schafer’s soundscape of natural environmental noises I was inspired to write Life Musik, which was my attempt at encapsulating what I had learned from Eno, Schafer, Satie, and Cage. I felt then (2003), and still feel that compositionally, I hit the mark in creating a hybrid theoretical concept of Eno’s ambient music, Schafer’s soundscape of natural sound, and my own belief that some combination of the former and the latter could be juxtaposed over one another, thus allowing us to tune our sonic environment. However, with Life Musik, I still felt as though there was something that I wasn’t getting. Something still felt like it was missing. On the one hand, there was the music, on the other hand was the poetics of experience, and a conceptual framework, even still there were presentations of the sound and the concept that took place all over the world. However, something was still lost. I shelved the project, and considered it only a partial success.

In the last six months I’ve started to pick that project up again. Time has allowed me to frame my own work, the work of Satie, Eno, Cage and Schafer in a way that I couldn’t have seen before. I realized that the one component that was missing was that of a pure experiential perspective. I tried to wrap this aspect of it into my Life Musik paper, but my thoughts in this area were abstract and still needed to be refined. I felt that my feelings, with regard to present moment listening from a Vipassana Buddhist perspective satisfied the experiential component of my theoretical framework. I felt that was true for a long time, until I actually moved away from writing, and music composition, and instead truly focused on the experience of listening and space. I realized that the experiential aspect that was missing was that of creating an experience for the listener.

It could be argued that through recordings and live presentations of sound I’ve created an experience for the listener. However, I wouldn’t agreed with that argument. I feel that if one is to truly set up and experience for the listener, then that must be undertaken with an integrated approach that includes a pre-selected space, a composition that’s been crafted for that space, and possibly a conceptual position that’s been established so that a listener has an idea of the listening direction; the latter could be as brief or as elaborate the composition or anticipated experience dictates. I also want to make it clear that sometimes, perhaps even often times, a conceptual position is meant more for me, as the composer, and what my feelings are, rather than providing a road map for what I feel a listener and/or participant should be experiencing.

So with all this said, I have some ideas, and I look forward to the journey and the exploration with this new approach and new perspective. I imagine this will yield more recordings and experiments which will yield more releases on our Slo.Bor Media label. I also hope to get active in working on site-specific ambient music compositions that marry space and sound, and sound and space.

Good morning.

Some people say money won’t make you happy.

But I say (stolen from Keith P) Everything is funny with a pocketful of money.

Does happy make u money??

Doing good work with good people often has a very positive outcome. Hell, sometimes doing even mediocre work with good people makes all the difference. When I’m starting a project I try to see the absolute best vision of what it can be, pushing all the bureaucracy and unknown variables aside. I try to communicate the vision to the people I’m working with. I want them to see the same vision that I see. I’m not talking unrealistic BS, but truly the good that come out of the project, and the good work and value we can get out of the process. It’s true that good work is it’s own reward. But an even better reward is bringing together good people and good work to create greatness. Surely, there’s nothing better than that.

This post was inspired by recent work I did with Lansing, Michigan-based Such Video. Karen Stefl, David Such and Mike Nelson do great work, and it’s truly a pleasure to work with them. I wish that all of my vendor relationships could be as pleasant. For the sake of full disclosure our relationship is purely professional and I hold no interest in their organization; just wanted to give them props for good work.

Good morning.

Life is fragile, Some days do you feel like your walking on eggshells?

You have to open your eyes and answer the ?

What do I bring to the table??

(Ed.Note – I don’t even know what the hell The Daily Stevism is talking about today, but what the heck, it’s the Daily Stevism the profundity of wisdom and knowledge will become more clear in time (I hope) LOL …)

–UPDATE

STEVEN COHEN says:
September 24, 2009 at 10:05 am

What I mean today is simply this… What do you bring to the table? In any relationship. Whether it is work or home or anything. What do you bring to the table or do you not bring anything to the table?