I sat up this morning as I do every morning, in utter disbelief at what time it is. In absolute denial that the time could possibly mean anything, let alone that it means that I have to get up and go to work. But eventually, as I do every morning, I reckoned with this truth. This is a temporary cadence in the grand scheme. I won’t always have a day job.
I woke up at Jules’ house, which means that I could hear the city sounds of Los Feliz through the window glass. I looked at the babies (guinea pigs) for reassurance. They always look so soft and happy. Both of them have natural cowlicks in their fur that make it look like they just woke up. I’m not sure what they gave me, but it was just enough to get to work on time (five minutes late).
The album approaches. I have been thinking about so many other things. Our release show is this Saturday, and the band is congregating tonight to rehearse in our home. It is so beautiful and nourishing that writing recording and playing music is possible and that I am able to do it. The closest thing to my soul’s purpose that I know is touring with my band, and we are doing that later this month. I am really looking forward to that.
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I wrote that yesterday.
Now it is today, and the album is out, and I am so proud of it. Our record release show/party is on Saturday. It’s going to rock and be so fun. The community in which we make music is so beautiful and great and rare. And I am just so grateful for all of it.
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The fact that the world feels like an incomprehensible free-for-all of evil powers undermining each other that I am unwittingly (and in myriad ways) participating in, and the fact that that fact is verified daily by the most trusted journalistic establishments and smartest individuals you or I could imagine (again in uncountable ways), and the fact that there are real, small, real individuals who face real death and permanent pain in the face of it (and we see them sometimes on the internet while we’re in the middle of self-inducing petty jealousies on our ones, loved and otherwise), and the fact that our parents’ generation never had to deal with anything remotely similar to this and they have no idea how to deal with it either, combined with the fact that we’ve been left largely to our own devices to attempt an unfearful life of (hopefully, maybe) service and self-actualization amidst the chaos… it fucking gets to me occasionally. Sorry.
It feels like all we know is victory and defeat. Even some of the smartest and most sensitive of my peers. And I think, really? You too?
It should then come as no surprise that so many of my smart peers too react to the incomprehensibility of the world by affecting a tone (and general orientation) that is plausibly both earnest and sarcastic. I get it. But grow up and say how you feel.
Maybe I’m just lashing out because I feel lonely sometimes in processing or even acknowledging this stuff. I am learning how to speak up for the way I feel. I am also learning how to speak up for how other people feel (which is mostly just called Actually Listening).
I’m learning to accept other people’s feelings exactly how they are and see that they don’t necessarily have anything to do with me. I am learning to give the people I love the most the most space to be exactly how they are emotionally. I am learning to be patient. I’m learning how to be a dick and I’m learning how to actually be kind.
Hopefully the end result is a guy who’s really awesome to be around and awesome to be.
I am becoming wholly unconvinced that building communities and friendships and relationships around the principle of always being “nice” (at least the way I’ve been doing it) is sustainable or even good. It’s too hard to express yourself with that pressure. Silent resentments and unexpressed inner-worlds… it’s a tried-and-true way to make everyone involved feel claustrophobic and miserable. It would be so much better if the emphasis was in having the self-knowledge and self-confidence to take things you don’t want to hear in stride. How can not wanting to hear something say anything one way or the other about the validity of that thing? Are we just going to tip toe around each other with pillows taped to our heads, torsos, backs, arms, and legs and crying when we intermittently bump into each other? All the while, authoritarians rule the vast majority of Earth’s soil and ponder what hobbies they’ll have when (and not if) the inevitable happens and the socioeconomic bottom 85% of the world’s population perishes due to lack of access to either food or water or habitable air (and they’re betting on which one it will be, and in which proportions). Their words, not mine. I think we’re going to be fine.
I am not meaning to come across as opposed to gentleness and sweetness and love. Also, I am not meaning to act like I don’t understand why my generation has such an incredibly low amount of emotional resiliency (which I don’t exclude myself in).
You know the phrase, “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.” What if we aimed a little higher? That is all I am saying. Like, do we have any common wisdom for, say, if the thing you say has nothing to do with what’s being talked about and derails the conversation for everybody (but is nice)? And what about if, in saying something, somebody is totally avoiding responsibility for something very real (while being nice)? You see what I’m saying? Niceness doesn’t have really anything to do with what is actually being communicated. Just how it is being communicated. Do we have anything to say about the substance of what should be said?
Here’s another one: “Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve the silence?” Is that not an austere way to view speech (the very thing that makes us human and arguably best makes outer what is God-given and inner and so sacred)? Did Walt Whitman abide by that? No, of course not. How about this: like, is it beautiful? Is it resonant? Has it never been said? Does it help you to say it? Do you wish people said it more?
Again, look. This is just how I feel right now. I am cranky. But doesn’t it feel like, in the face of a historic amount of temptation to give in to the whims of capital—to be alienated, impotent, infantile, addicted, stationary, controllable—a correspondingly unprecedented pressure in the opposite direction—to be self-sufficient, mindful, un-addicted, communally-oriented, emotionally resilient, and with a surplus of attention—is appropriate? Doesn’t it seem like a good idea to push that way, and to do it at this point in time? Doesn’t it seem like, even if I am not doing it perfectly, I am pushing in a direction we can all recognize as good?
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The title of this piece of writing is from something that was lifted along the way of writing. But I’ll give it an honorable mention. I was talking about liberation. How it is the goal with everything (even though I forget that often). I was talking about what I think it is. There is obviously liberation on a large, political scale—totalitarian governments becoming democracies, prisoners being freed, colors and genders of human beings given rights. But there is also this parallel liberation that happens on a smaller, individual scale, regardless of the status of the big systemic stuff. How do you experience liberation in your family, or your workplace, or your relationship with your scale, or your pantry, or your living room walls you need to get around to painting? I think this kind of liberation is a feeling, and one that only comes temporarily. It comes when you end a relationship that needed to end. It also comes when you get inspired to clean behind your stove. I think you even feel it in a meaningful way when you solve a particularly difficult math equation. There’s a “click” moment that is universal. It’s like a momentary flash of God’s light. Maybe liberation isn’t a perfect word for it, but it’s the only one I’ve landed on that feels right. We’ve all felt it before. It happens when a story you’re watching or reading comes to its conclusion. It connects with your heart and you earn a small-yet-inextricable sliver of what it means to be human. There’s been a (in my opinion, successful) attempt to distill the bare components necessary to induce this feeling in a story called the story circle, which is based on the work of Joseph Campbell. The story circle has two halves—the half of order (where the story begins and where it ends; the first and third acts) and the half of chaos (the meat/conflict of the story; the second act). This shape is fundamental to humans experiencing liberations of all sizes.
For instance, I used to work on a podcast about a guy who was trying to solve his daughter’s murder. He had been trying to solve it for decades. And let’s say he conclusively solved it—that story circle would close. He would be back in the world of order, having changed. But that isn’t the end of his life. His next thing might be that he finally has to learn how to cook for himself, or his next thing might be reckoning with the fact that he has to find a “next thing.” A smaller circle, for sure, but one nonetheless. And he’ll have circles within that, too—of having to find the right food for his cat with digestive problems, of finding all of his tax paperwork. Our humanity is ultimately made of our infinite nested circles.
There’s probably more to be said about this, but I just wanted to include it.
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Non sequitur final thought, but I looked through this list today and it was fascinating. It’s of 2009’s best albums according to Pitchfork.
Oh, I also got a new guitar. It’s in the picture.
Until next time.